Chennai: “NEET is difficult for poor and underprivileged students. We neither have money to afford nor the facilities to attend coaching classes. We can climb up the ladders only with what we have got,” 17-year-old S Anitha, a Dalit from Tamil Nadu’s Ariyalur district, had told reporters in 2017.
The teenager, a school topper and daily wage labourer’s daughter who dreamt of becoming a doctor, was among the first to knock the doors of the Supreme Court against the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET).
The apex court however directed the Tamil Nadu government to proceed with medical admissions based on the NEET. Days later, Anitha took her own life on 1 September, 2017. She had scored 1176 marks out of 1200 in her Class XII board examinations but failed to crack the NEET examination.
“Her dream of becoming a doctor was shattered by this unfair and unjust NEET examination,” recalls her brother SA Manirathnam.
According to the Tamil Nadu government, until March, 26 students from the state have died by suicide over the NEET since the exam was introduced in 2017.
Pointing to the ongoing controversies of alleged paper leaks, irregularities in final scores and mismanagement at examination centres plaguing the medical entrance test, family members of the students who lost their lives, while speaking to ThePrint, said the country has now woken up to the fact that the NEET has been against the poor and the underprivileged.
“No one can give us back our children. At least, the whole country should stand up against the NEET now and scrap it,” says R Tamilselvan, uncle of V Vignesh, a 19-year-old student from Ariyalur who was preparing for his third attempt at the NEET when he killed himself on 9 September, 2020. Vignesh had scored 1012 marks out of 1200 in his Class XII board examination.
Tamil Nadu was among the first states to oppose the NEET. In February 2017, the then AIADMK government had first adopted a bill against the exam in the Tamil Nadu assembly. However, then president Ram Nath Kovind withheld his assent to the bill.
After the DMK came to power, the Tamil Nadu assembly adopted a bill seeking to dispense with the NEET for admission to undergraduate medical courses in the state in September 2021. Governor R N Ravi returned the bill to the state assembly. Then, for the first time, the Tamil Nadu assembly re-adopted the bill on 8 February, 2022. The governor then forwarded it to the home ministry and it is still awaiting Presidential assent.
Last week, the Centre told the Supreme Court that the decision to give grace marks to 1,563 NEET-UG 2024 candidates for admission to MBBS, BDS and other courses has been cancelled and they will be given an option to take a re-test on 23 June.
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‘This is the same exam that took my son’s life’
Of the 26 Tamil Nadu students who took their own lives over the NEET examination, most from poor backgrounds.
“The ongoing controversy proves that only those who have money can get education. Those who have money were able to get the question papers prior to the examination, but not all. This is the same exam that took the life of my nephew,” says Tamilselvan.
The family members questioned the logic behind conducting a re-exam for 1,563 students.
“The marks were given to only those who approached courts. So, what about the other students who also had to face similar issues but did not afford to approach court?” asks Anitha’s brother Manirathnam.
Tamilselvan feels that it once again sets up poor students for disappointment that only those who have money can get what they want.
“There is already an underlying belief among the poor that they could not secure a medical seat just because they are poor. The irregularities that are reported every year, yet again make the students lose their hope and snatch their dreams of becoming doctors,” says Vignesh’s uncle Tamilselvan.
Another relative of a NEET victim, KV Dineshkumar, says that the alleged mismanagement and paper leaks were nothing new. “We have been talking about irregularities and mismanagement in NEET exams for a long time. But we cannot fight the exam on our own so we gave up.”
Dineshkumar’s 20-year-old elder brother KV Keerthivasan, a native of Coimbatore district’s Kinathukadavu, wrote the NEET exam for the fourth time in 2021. However, he took his own life on October 30, 2021, days before the results were announced.
“They claim NEET is an eligibility test to select qualified students to enter the MBBS. But if the candidates can get the question paper before the exam and clear it, where is the quality they claim?” asks Dineshkumar.
Others also questioned the need for Class XII board exams if the students are forced to take the entrance test. “Only if a student scores more than 95% marks can he get into government medical colleges. To join private medical colleges via management quota, students need a minimum of 50% marks. But they don’t consider the Class XII marks at all. If it is so, then why do we need the Class XII exam?” asks Maniratnam.
The family members suggested conducting UG admissions based on Class XII marks.
“Let them make the MBBS syllabus tough to produce quality professionals and let our students once again prove themselves as they do in Class XII,” says Tamilselvan.
(Edited by Gitanjali Das)