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Nice article Dr. Lakshmanan, where can I read your scholarly articles ?
While Dr Lakshmanan’s write-up is lucid and places in perspective the plight of the poor Anithas of our oppressive and highly iniquitous society, larger issues need to be addressed.
NEET is not at all neat as it is preposterously “one size fits all”, about which Lakshmanan has also drawn attention. In a federal set up such as India Centre should not be an interloper and the judiciary has to be judicious in its dispensation without being insensitive to the imperfections and inadequacies of society. If the Centre cannot have CBSE in state schools, by the same logic it cannot regulate higher education admission through lop-sided policies. If a state insists that it will have its own admission system, NEET and such other merit-tests should be limited to only central institutions, where also students from any state can compete if they wish. That said there should be proper mechanism to ensure that even the poorest of the poor student has access to professional or any other type of education if she has the requisite marks.
If Anitha had got admission would she have managed to bear the exorbitant cost of her education unless some Nilekanis sitting on huge money bags came forward to sponsor her?
What we need to ask is why professional education is so expensive in our country, particularly in the case of medical education. There is obviously a demand-supply mismatch. There should be a lot more quality institutions so that no deserving student will be left out. While I believe in merit, I also treat it as contingent on many factors. If NEET is treated as the measure of all measures obviously there is something seriously wrong with the policy framework.
Experience has shown that proliferation of engineering colleges for profit and greed has not helped the deserving students; many of these colleges are gradually disappearing. Medical education in the private sector is worse. Higher education, particularly professional education cannot spread across the entire social spectrum unless demand-supply mismatch, affordability of aspiring students, quality of teaching, institutional ambience and related issues are addressed.
We have instances of parents sending their children to countries like China where medical education is cheap and admission is without the rigour and trauma of hell. Whether India values degrees from China is a different issue.
Last issue: As the best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry, youth should be made to think realistically. Failure to get a medical seat should not be the end of one’s life. Youth should be made to value their life irrespective of hurdles and denials on their path. Our youth turning increasingly suicidogenic is worrisome. This malady should get a lot more attention than passing the NEET muster.
Well written. Just for curiosity, any data available for comparing the socio-economic background of students admitted under non-NEET (pre 2017) and NEET (2017)?
True but now only the elite especially owning cars are there for medical admission.
Wasn’t it the Supreme court that ordered NEET as compulsory? 80% of colleges in Tamil Nadu are owned by politicians and they don’t want NEET. In fact, even now, only 50% of medical seats have been filled in TN.
who owns 23 government colleges? No state in India has such huge in number. in service doctors of 50% government quota in medical higher education. Those who availed with condition should serve in the government hospital for entire life, if one wish to leave in the middle of the career he/she should repay money incurred by tax payers money. Under the NEET anyone availing the admission would go and mint money elsewhere. TN is much more serious and efficient.