Suicides over NEET in Tamil Nadu all over media. The main issue the state has with the test is rarely pointed out.

The National Eligibility-Cum Entrance Test (NEET) is a nation-wide common entrance test for medical admission. In Tamil Nadu, political parties as well as the general public have been strongly against NEET. It generally appears that this strong feeling is because many students are committing suicide. Some may think this is a valid reason. After all, people are losing their lives. On the other hand, people can commit suicide over anything. Anybody who commits suicide must be crazy. Some might find it ridiculous to connect suicides with NEET.

In any case, suicides are not the main reason why Tamil Nadu is so against NEET. We generally don't hear sensible explanations from politicians, only meaningless explanations made to sound dramatic. However, some politicians do explain things sensibly. The trouble is these politicians don't have much media presence. Read on to know the real reason why the state is against NEET. Bellow are extracts from the politicians' speeches in the Lok Sabha over the NEET bill in 2016 (The politicians would have spoken in the future tense since the bill was yet to be passed). Speeches of this type don’t have much media presence.

Rural-urban divide:

The Tamil Nadu government spends a lion's share of its budget on school education. Government schools are very widely spread out in rural areas. Now, there is not much rural-urban divide in getting a class 12 certificate. However, it is not the same with entrance exams.

The Governments of Puducherry and Tamil Nadu, after long deliberations, decided to do away with the entrance examination for the medical education. It was done so as to enable the students of rural background to get a chance to enter into the medical education. The decision was definitely right as proved by the statistics that it has helped a lot of students to get into the medical education.

--R. Radhakrishnan, N. R Congress leader, Puducherry MP.

When there was entrance exam in Tamil Nadu, about 15 per cent of the rural students got admission to MBBS in medicine. Since the time we did away with the entrance exam in Tamil Nadu in 2006, 65 per cent of the students, who got admission to MBBS, were from the rural areas. So, this NEET is definitely against social equity and against rural students. For an entrance exam, students need coaching centres and coaching centres are all located in the urban areas. To get into a coaching centre, a student has to pay between five to seven lakh rupees. A rural student definitely cannot have so much money to do it.

--Dr. Anbumani Ramadoss, former union health minister, Dharmapuri MP, Tamil Nadu.

In the year 2017, only five students from government schools cleared the NEET exam from Tamil Nadu. It has become better over the years, but is still very minuscule.

How the Tamil Nadu MBBS admission system used to work:

MBBS aspirants send their class 12 mark-sheet. They will be ranked according to their class 12 marks. Colleges admit students depending on their rank, there is no personal influence. The system is much the same as the systems with common entrance exams. The difference is, you don't need to write the exam!

CBSE-Other board divide.

NEET is based on the CBSE syllabus.

[I]f there is a common syllabus throughout the country, then one can say that it is justified to conduct a common test... Since there is no uniform syllabus in the country at the plus-two level, compelling the students to take NEET in CBSE syllabus would result in denial of fair opportunity to lakhs of students.

--G. Venkatesh Badu, AIADMK, Chennai (Central) MP, Tamil Nadu

T]here is nearly 37 per cent difference between the West Bengal Board and the CBSE. In these competitive examinations, half a mark of difference makes a difference of 50 students getting a chance or not getting a chance. So, if the standard is of the CBSE syllabus, then many of our vernacular and regional language studying students are going to be deprived, which is going to be a gross injustice on them.

--Dr. Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar, AITC, Barasat MP, West Bengal

Tamil Nadu was not alone in opposing NEET. Many other states also have the same issues. However, Tamil Nadu is the most affected.

Foreign students filling up the seats (students foreign to the state):

Before NEET was introduced, medical colleges would admit mainly local students (students from the same state). If the state was 'medically-advanced' (if it had more medical colleges), there would be many more students getting admission from that particular state. After NEET was introduced, 'medically-advanced' states started getting many foreign students. This made it difficult for locals to get seats. Students from medically-backward states found it easily to go to other states and study. On one hand, it gave talented students an opportunity to study irrespective of their state. On the other hand, states which had spent a large amount of money and energy, would start benefiting  very little from it.

NEET is the need of the hour because from as far as Sikkim from the North-East, all students would like to access the best of medical colleges across the country. I continuously hear certain issues related to local problems but I must remind everyone that every institution, be they in the private sector or in the Government sector, is an institution which belongs to the nation. So, each and every member of the student fraternity has the right to access the best of medical education that this country can afford.

--Prem Das Rai, SDF, Sikkim MP.

We create medical colleges, we create medical infrastructure, and we want people to work in our medical colleges and hospitals. According to that we design and we act... Why should we give seats to the students of other States? When our students study in our colleges, they will go and work in the rural areas, district hospitals and taluka hospitals. [Will] the students from other States... work in our  hospitals? That is why the Tamil Nadu Government has protested against this* Act.

--Dr. K. Kamaraj, AIADMK, Kallakurichi MP, Tamil Nadu

*Dr. K. Kamaraj was at that time talking about the decision to reserve 50% of PG seats to students from other states. However, the feeling will be there for UG seats as well.

While there are arguments on both sides for this, there is another reason for foreigners filling up seats: NEET is based on the CBSE syllabus. Since CBSE can be written only in English and Hindi, there are significantly fewer CBSE schools in Tamil Nadu and in other non-Hindi states.

Some requests were made to solve this problem.

The Centre must study the syllabus of all the States and must devise a common syllabus based on the syllabus of various States and then only prepare for NEET. Only then will we be able to give justice to all the students all over the nation.

--Dr. Shrikant Eknath Shinde, Shiv Sena, Kalyan MP, Maharashtra

However, the central government did not heed their request.

Suicides:

No matter what the circumstances are, suicides should be prevented. However, it is still important to look at Anitha's case (Anitha is the famous student who committed suicide over NEET). She had studied hard, but her focus was mainly on class 12. She secured as much as 98% in the class 12 exam. Prior to NEET, such high marks could easily get one into a medical college. However, she scored only 86 marks out of 720 in NEET. Just like her, many other students would have had such bad experiences.

The trouble is, Anitha has had so much publicity that other students have followed her into committing suicide. Even if students do badly in class 12, there is a tendency to blame NEET for having denied them a medical seat. This causes more suicides.

Other problems with NEET:

The NEET exam consists of only multiple choice questions. The only advantage of this is that it can be corrected easily. The government could have just spent a little more money in hiring teachers to correct the papers. Then they could have easily made it a written exam.

The idea of having a common entrance exam was so that students don't need to write many exams for each college. However, even though NEET is conducted by the central government, they had exempted their own institutions like AIIMS and JIPMER. These institutions came under NEET only in the year 2020.

NEET was introduced to reduce corruption. The Medical Council of India (now National Medical Council), also planned to regulate college fees.

However, there are certain colleges which still charge very high fees and take students with low marks. Technically there is no personal influence. It is just that students who do well can't afford to pay the fees. This makes ultra-rich students get admission even if they have low marks.

In the year 2017 alone, there were over 500 students who secured a single digit at best (yes, some scored zero or even negative marks!) in Physics and Chemistry who still got admission into MBBS colleges. Fees for some of these students were Rs. 18 lakh a semester.

Many of the problems could have been solved. Instead, the central government introduced NEET in a way in which problems still existed. The advantage for the central government was that they had direct control over the medical admission and syllabus (For example, the college which admitted students with negative marks would have had to bribe the central government instead of having to bribe the state government).

BJP and Congress implemented NEET together, while most other political parties opposed it. Had the main agenda not been to get control, they would not have implemented it unless it could help solve the problems. The government's strength is very much because of divided opposition. Congress could have easily opposed the NEET bill in parliament and it would have been negated. However, they found it convenient to get the bill passed while BJP was in power. They calculated that once they come to power they would have the same control over the system BJP had earlier.

If we do not have faith in our Higher Secondary Council Exams [and] we also do not have faith in our State Entrance Exams, after ten years, I think somebody here will be standing and asking the Government as to why should we have faith in NEET which is being conducted by the MCI. If we start doubting the system itself from the very beginning, is there any guarantee that there will not be hara-kiri in NEET ? First,we have to strengthen the system that exists. We have Higher Secondary Council Examination for 10+2. If that examination is perfect, why should we doubt that Examination?

--Bhartruhari Mahtab, BJD, Cuttack MP, Odisha.