Education: National Eligibility cum Entrance Test Issue

The Supreme Court has recently restored the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) examination for students who wish take under graduate and post-graduate studies in medical science, dental or PG medical education.

NEET Advantages

The NEET basically frees the students to prepare for multiple entrance examinations and tests. There are around 100 different entrance tests which were conducted every year, each levying a fee of Rs. 1200 to Rs. 6000. This led to an escalation of expenditure for students. With NEET, all these expenditures are done away with. This exam also tackles the Capitation Fee issue to a great extent.

Thus, the advantages of NEET are:

• There would be one common examination for admission into almost all of the MBBS colleges in India.
• The students will be free and relaxed after appearing in only one exam.
• No need to apply for several entrance examinations.
• Stress-level will be considerably reduced.
• There would be substantial financial savings for parents.
• NEET will avoid unnecessary wastage of time, effort & money.
• Since the admission criteria does not include Board marks (apart from minimum eligibility), a student must prepare in a focused manner for NEET.

Criticism of NEET

Firstly, there is an overarching fear that NEET will provide a huge advantage to students of Delhi-headquartered boards such as the Central Board of Secondary Education. Secondly, with NEET, the government is making one exam applicable for entry into MBBS or BDS. This would build up psychological fear in the student’s minds. This would create pressure on many students as they have only one chance of getting into a medical college. The pressure might lead to bad performance on the actual day of the exam. Earlier the students had an opportunity of other exams wherein they had a second chance to perform well. Thirdly, conducting and managing one exam at all India level might lead to errors and mismanagement on various parts and delay into the rank list resulting in delay in admission procedure. Fourthly, on one hand we talk about co-operative federalism and on the other hand the government declares NEET which is totally under the central government control. This would to decrease in the role of State government.

NEET versus Private Colleges

NEET is said to have a devastating effect on the multi-crore ‘capitation fees’ industry which is run by private medical colleges. There are more than 250 private medical colleges in the country where mostly admission processes are a ‘farce’ and ‘capitation fees’ is what decides the entry of the candidates. This would definitely be stopped and therefore the introduction of NEET is not welcomed by the private medical colleges.

Way Forward

NEET is a welcome move as it would curb the capitation fee market and would also bring about uniformity. However, being practical in this approach is much more needed. There must be a time lag of around 5 years for NEET to be introduced formally so that students who do not study in CBSE board can get accustomed to the pattern and do not feel left out of the process.