A bugbear no longer: the long road to NEET

Bevin Nishanth, a first-year student in an arts college in the city, has a hectic daily schedule. After attending classes for the first half of the day, Nishanth spends the rest of his day in coaching classes, preparing for the National Eligibility Cum Entrance Test(NEET), to be held in May next year, for admission to an MBBS course.

The general mood among students and teachers in the State this year, ahead of the competitive exam, is in stark contrast with what its was like in the past. Tamil Nadu has had a tumultuous encounter with NEET, with protests and court cases dotting the conduct of the examination in the State.

“This time around, there is a certainty that the exam is going to be held and will be necessary for medical admissions. While earlier we saw a number of students opting to take a crash course a month before NEET was to be conducted, we’ve had students enrolling in coaching programmes right at the start of the year this time,” explained K. Swaminathan, Founder, Smart Learning Centre.

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The lowdown on NEET 2019

After the last two years, when uncertainty had prevailed on whether or not the State would go ahead with conducting the exam, students and teachers this year say they are resigned to the prospect of the common unified test and have started preparations in full swing. Some challenges however still remain – competing with candidates who are almost twice their age, travelling to centres far from home, and the uncertainty of getting the test paper in the language of their choice.

Several coaching centres across the State have seen students enrol well in advance; in fact, at the beginning of the academic year itself. Smart Learning Centre, which had 500 students enrolling for the year-long coaching programme last year, has over 2,200 students who have signed up for the programme this year in Chennai alone.

Greater awareness

Students of class 12 apart, candidates like Nishant will also be among those who will be taking the test. The Supreme Court on November 29 allowed candidates aged 25 years and above to appear for NEET as well. “The number of people retaking the test too has significantly increased this year,” points out Ajith Sridharan, a faculty of mathematics from TIME Institute who felt that the awareness about the need to prepare for the exam has grown significantly in the last year.

While there are nearly 1.41 lakh students who have registered for the exam from Tamil Nadu this year, the State does not have the figure for the number of students who have registered for the Tamil version of the test yet. This number shows an increase of nearly 21,000 students from those who registered for the exam in 2018.

Last year, students who took the test in Tamil had to contend with “incorrect translations” of technical words from English to Tamil. The CBSE, which set the question paper, did not approach the State for language translators and maintained in the subsequent legal battles that it had sought experts’ opinion in translation.

Also, right from the beginning, Tamil Nadu has maintained that its primary objection to NEET was the way in which it would put students of its board at a disadvantage, compared to CBSE students. At most private coaching classes, 65% students are from the State board.

In order not to be left behind, the School Education Department began offering free coaching classes to students in government schools from 2017 to equip them better for the exam. The State announced a curriculum modification – after it was pointed out that the differences in the CBSE and State Board curriculum put students at a disadvantage.

Gearing up

“The focus for students should be on understanding the concepts, irrespective of what board they are from. Many of us who are teaching them begin by addressing any concerns they have about falling behind compared to students of other boards,” says S. Lalitha, a retired professor of physics who has been teaching students gearing up for NEET.

So who stands a chance to secure admissions into medical colleges from the State? Data obtained under the Right to Information (RTI) Act by a resident of Coimbatore indicates that in 2018, three English medium students each from government and self-financing schools were admitted into government medical colleges based on NEET results. One Tamil medium student from a government school made it to a self-financing medical college.

However, this year seems to have sparked a lot more hope. Earlier this week, School Education Minister K.A. Sengottaiyan said that he expected at least 500 students from government and government-aided schools to clear NEET and secure admissions in May 2019.

“Last year, since we started coaching two months before the test, many students didn’t have sufficient time to prepare. This year, we have started coaching well in advance,” he said. According to him, 26,000 students had initially registered for coaching in government schools and around 11,000 were attending classes.

“While we had allocated a budget of ₹20 crore for NEET coaching last year, we did not spend a single rupee as the colleges where the residential coaching was held bore the costs and provided all the facilities to the students,” he added. With regard to people retaking the exam, as many as 1,277 candidates who got into medical colleges in the State this year had taken at least a year to prepare for the test. In contrast, only 557 candidates who graduated this year made it to self-financing medical colleges

Road to NEET 2019

Taking into consideration students from different boards of education as well as the diverse age groups, activists feel that such competition is unhealthy. “The marking pattern in class 12 had automatically ruled out crowding by too many students from previous batches,” said G.R. Ravindranath, general secretary, Doctors Association for Social Equality.

Familiarity factor

Will the State conduct an intensive, month-long coaching programme ahead of the exam this year as well? School Education Secretary Pradeep Yadav says that it is still too early to decide on those details. “The decision will be taken only after the exams are over and based on the interest of the students,” he adds.

Mr. Yadav, however, adds that the National Testing Agency (NTA), which is conducting the exam this year, has increased the number of centres. “Thanks to this, the students will not have to go out of the State to take the exam,” he says.

Medical educators, in government and private practice, too have maintained that though initially students may have difficulty in coping, they manage to do well in subsequent years.

Their arguments are borne out by the results this year in medical colleges. There was an increase in the pass percentage among first-year students this year, said Tamil Nadu Dr. MGR Medical University Vice Chancellor S. Geethalakshmi. “It was 93% last year and this year it is 95%. Those who could not get in last year have got in this year,” she said.

Throwback to 2018-19

Aspirants can look forward to a new government medical college this year. The State will commission a college in Karur with an intake of 150 students. Recently, it inducted IRT Perundurai, which was until now run by the State Transport Corporation, into its pool of medical colleges. The State is also upgrading facilities in Tirunelveli and Madurai medical colleges to add 100 and 95 more seats, respectively. “We should get the seats provided the doctors do not go on strike during the time of inspection,” said A. Edwin Joe, director of Medical Education.

In total, the State will have 24 medical colleges, including the new ones. Dr. Geethalakshmi said that two new self-financing colleges have also sought permission to admit 150 students each.

However, given the poor track record of self-financing colleges in the State in the past six years, medical educators in the government do not consider it a positive trend.

“Although students who have scored over 60% can do well in medicine, the same is not true for private institutions, which have admitted students with lower marks. It will ultimately result in substandard professionals. The State government should consider this while giving approval for new private institutions,” said a senior doctor with the government.

With half-yearly examinations on, the government coaching Centres as well as many of the private centres are on a short break. Preparations will resume in a week’s time.

“The State still has a long way to go in ensuring that the students are able to devote enough time to their boards as well as preparing for the entrance exam. The Tamil medium students from rural areas are definitely at a disadvantage and this is not something that mere coaching for a year can change drastically,” opines K.P.O. Suresh, State president of the Post Graduate Teachers Associations. Many PG teachers in government schools across the State have been overseeing coaching classes in their schools, which are being conducted over the weekends.

“While the class 11 curriculum has been changed with the aim of making students better prepared to face the exam, a revised curriculum for all the high and higher secondary classes can probably bring about a change for the better. This won’t be an instant change, but we can hope for results in a few years’ time,” he adds.

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