Fiasco of UGC-NET, NEET, 2024 : Downside of centralisation
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: June 22, 2024 -

Should it shake the Government ?

It should but this is India, where irregularities are taken as something of a par for the course and one wonders whether this would send the think tank of the Government scurrying back to the drawing room or whether it will be satisfied with just conducting a fresh test.

In the middle of the storm is the National Testing Agency (NTA), christened the premier agency to select candidates for much sought after courses, but just seven years after it was set up in 2017, a move seen by many as yet another bid to fall in line with the BJP’s much tom tommed One Nation, One Test; One Nation, One Language; One Nation, One Religion or maybe One Nation, One Party ideology, seems to have become its biggest blunder.

The NTA is perhaps one example that clearly reflects the One Nation, One Test ideology of the BJP at the Centre and hence it is tasked with the job of conducting the Common Management Admission Test, the admission test to pursue Bachelor of Pharmacy study, the National Eligibility and Entrance Test (NEET), the Common University Entrance Test (CUET) for students seeking admission in Undergraduate and Postgraduate courses in different universities across the country, the UGC-National Eligibility Test (NET) and the list can go on.

This is not all for in a clear departure from earlier years, premier medical institutions like the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Delhi (AIIMS), Jawaharlal Institute of Postgraduate Medical Education and Research (JIPMER) etc, have also been brought under the ambit of NEET, thereby taking away the right to conduct their own entrance test.

It is also the same thing with other premier universities such as Delhi University (DU) and Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) which have all been brought under the ambit of CUET.

One wonders whether the centralisation moves such as NTA taking over the job of deciding which students have made the cut to study in institutions like DU and JNU fall in line with the beautiful understanding of the diversity in a state of unity or not.

As things stand, the fate of over 23 lakh students who appeared for NEET to be eligible to don the whites after their studies is still uncertain, but what sets apart the NEET this year is the fact that at least 67 students are reported to have topped the entrance examination, having secured a perfect ten, meaning scoring 720 out of 720.

The same story cuts through the UGC-NET with the Centre admitting ‘exam integrity has been compromised’ and herein lies the tragedy of it all.

Ironic it is but this is definitely not what the doctor would have prescribed to select students and groom them to become doctors later in life.

It is the same thing with the over 9 lakh students who had appeared for the UGC-NET exam just so that they are able to avail the opportunities on offer to go in for research or join the noble teaching profession.

One hopes the whip is cracked fast and efficiently at that and the think tank of the Government should go back to the board room to discuss what steps may be taken to plug the loopholes but in the process it should be kept in mind that centralising everything, particularly education may not exactly fit in well with the understanding of a country which has embraced both its unity and diversity.

The fate of lakhs of students hangs in the limbo as of now and this is certainly not the way the country can or should go about promoting the understanding of excellence.

Instead of centralising almost everything it catches ifs fancy, perhaps the Government should seriously get down to the business of promoting the ideology of One Nation, One Idea of Excellence.

And compromising with the understanding of its diversity goes against the idea of promoting the idea of excellence.

For starters clean the rot, set right the fiasco that has dogged NEET and UGC-NET this year and see what steps should be taken to put the career of lakhs of students back on track.

For starters pull up all those who played around with the career of lakhs of students for the future of the students cannot be decided with the amount of cash that may be exchanged.

This is corruption and the BJP Government at Delhi should admit that corruption has eaten into the very process of selecting students who would one day become doctors and teachers and scholars.