20 reasons and two routes to eliminate NEET, Rajan committee tells TN govt

20 reasons and two routes to eliminate NEET, Rajan committee tells TN govt

Ragu.Raman@timesgroup.com

Chennai:21.09.2021

The Justice AK Rajan Committee, which studied the impact of National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET) on the student community in Tamil Nadu, has listed 20 reasons for elimination of NEET.

It suggested the twinroute of legislative and legal procedures to achieve the purpose. The committee also made seven recommendations that included bringing all deemed universities under the purview of the state government.

The 165-page report, submitted to the government in July 2021, was released to the media on Monday. The contents of the report were first reported by TOI on July 15.

Among the 20 points for opposing NEET were arguments that NEET neglected Class XII marks and promoted private coaching, and that it denied opportunities to tribal, rural and oppressed students.

Also, the report said the percentage of rural students came down from 65.17% in 2016-17 in the pre-NEET year, to 49.91% in 2020-21. The number of Tamil medium students allotted the MBBS seats also came down from 14.88% in 2016-17 to a mere 1.99% in 2020-21.

Likewise, the percentage of state board students getting MBBS seats also plummeted from 65.66% in 2016-17 to 48.22% in 2017-18 while the percentage of CBSE students has increased from 0.39% to 24.91% in just one year after the introduction of NEET. The number of government school students getting MBBS admissions also decreased from 34 students to just three students after NEET and no student from government schools got admitted to government medical colleges in 2017-18.

The number of first-generation graduates getting the seats also came down from 24.9% to 13.6% after the introduction of NEET in Tamil Nadu. Students whose parents annual income is less than 2.5lakhs per annum also come down from 47.42% before NEET to 30.6% after NEET.

Before NEET, 87.5% current-year students entered medical colleges, but it got reduced to 28.5% in 2020-21 as 71.4% repeaters grabbed the medical seats. The report also said the students were shelling out Rs 1 lakh to Rs 4.5 lakh per annum for coaching classes.

Justice Rajan Committee, therefore, asked the government to bring in a Bill to bin NEET and get the President's assent for the legislation. Reverting to Class XII marksbased admission to MBBS courses by adopting normalisation of scores to bring in equality among boards would be the solution, it said.

"This will ensure social justice and protect all vulnerable student communities from being discriminated against in admission to medical education programmes," the committee said in its report. It also advised the government to bring all deemed universities which are now directly under the UGC under the purview of the state government.

The committee, headed by Justice Rajan, had eight other members, including six government officials. It received more than 86,000 responses from the public. While more than 65,000 opposed NEET, 18,000 supported NEET and nearly 1,500 had no opinion.

The seven points that supported NEET included prevention of blocking of seats and the provision for Tamil Nadu students to enter union government-run colleges.