The ongoing fierce controversy about
holding of the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) for engineering and National
Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) for medicine admissions under the pandemic
gives us an opportunity to seriously examine the utility or to be more exact
the futility of holding entrance examinations at the national level.
Six states, West Bengal, Jharkhand,
Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra, Punjab and Rajasthan have approached the Supreme
Court against its 17 August order allowing the central government to hold the tests
in September. The Supreme Court had on 17 August dismissed a petition demanding
postponement of the tests saying that a crucial year of students cannot be
wasted and life has to go on. It did not explain how one year will be wasted if
the tests were not held. Admissions were done even before national testing was
introduced on the basis of marks obtained in the Central and State Board
examinations. Considering the extraordinary situation if the country had
reverted to the old practice, the heavens would not have fallen.
We should also consider the fact that
education is more of a state subject than central and the Supreme Court will
have to now give serious thought to the review petition filed by the states
against its own order. The court will also have to take into consideration the
opinion of the other states that have not approached it but have publically
opposed holding of the entrance examinations. It is quite adept at taking suo
motu action.
In a rather emotional video message to
the students, Sonia Gandhi, the interim Congress President said “You are our
future. We depend on you to build better India. Therefore, if any decision has
to be taken regarding your future, it is important that it is being taken with
your concurrence. I hope the government listens to you, listens to your voices
and act upon your wishes.”
NEET has been a very contentious issue
in many states specially Tamil Nadu. They have been opposing the National level
testing because it favored students who have taken examinations under the
Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) as against the students who take
examinations under the State Boards. The poor mostly take the State Board examinations.
The Tamil Nadu Assembly passed a bill
in 2017 to scrap NEET. The President of India’s approval is still awaited. And
both the state government and the Madras High Court have found that national
level testing is discriminatory against poor students .
And the Tamil Nadu Health Minister C. Vijayabasker on 26 August wrote to Union Health Minister
Harsh Vardhan seeking cancellation of NEET
on the ground that conducting the examination amid the pandemic “would
put the lives of the students attending it at great risk of infection.’’ He
demanded the government allow admissions to medical courses on the basis of
marks in class XII Board examinations. He suggested that central government
promulgate an ordinance in this regard.
The Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik has also written to the Union Education Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal
Nishank to postpone the JEE (main) and NEET examinations scheduled for
September. Under the prevailing pandemic situation in the country, it would be
highly unsafe and perilous for the students to visit the test centres physically,
Patnaik pointed out.
Nearly 16 lakh students have
registered for the NEET, at present a prerequisite for admission to
undergraduate medical and dental courses. It is a written examination. Some 8.5
lakh students have registered for JEE (Main). It is an online examination for
admission to National Institutes of Technology as well as other central, state
and private universities. The top rankers in this will be eligible to appear
for JEE Advanced for admission to Indian Institutes of Technology.
Global youth icon and climate activist
Greta Thunberg also opposed holding of the examinations. “It is deeply unfair
that students of India are asked to sit national exams during the COVID -19
pandemic and while millions have also been impacted by the extreme floods. I
stand with their call to #Postpone JEE_NEETinCOVID,” she tweeted on 25 August.
Considering the prevailing situation
in the country and overwhelming opposition from state governments and political
leaders across the country, one wonders how the Home Ministry gave its
clearance to hold examination when lock down conditions exist all across the
country. For with the Disaster Management Act 2005 in force the Home Ministry’s
clearance is required to hold the examinations.
