Govt school students may get reservation in med colleges

Eligibility: Class I-XII In Govt School

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Chennai:22.03.2020

The Tamil Nadu government is set to pass a new law to create special reservation for students of government schools in medical college admission, said chief minister Edappadi K Palaniswami, making a suo motu statement in the assembly on Saturday.

“The state is still fighting a legal battle in the Supreme Court against the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (Neet). The reservation will be for students who study from Class I to XII in government, corporation, municipal or adi-dravida schools as well as those run by the forest department,” said Palaniswami.

“The number of government school students entering medical colleges has come down drastically after the introduction of Neet. The government wants to stop this trend. A committee under the chairmanship of a retired high court judge will study the issue and make recommendations to the government. The commission will have secretaries of the health and law departments as members. Besides, two educationists named by the school education department will be included in the commission. The director of medical education will be the membersecretary of the commission,” said the chief minister.

The commission will study the reason for the poor entry of government school students into medical colleges and assess their social conditions before making recommendations to rectify the trend, Palaniswami said. The commission will submit its recommendations in a month.

Though NEET was introduced in 2016-17, late chief minister J Jayalalithaa had obtained an exemption for a year. “We have been opposing NEET. We adopted a resolution in the assembly and sent it to the Centre. We have also approached the Supreme Court and explained how the examination had severely affected the poor and students from rural areas,” he said.

A commission will study the reason for the poor entry of government school students into medical colleges and assess their social conditions before making recommendations to rectify the trend