Was there a subtle hint that NEET will eventually mean National Elimination and Exclusion Test? If that ‘Entrance Test’ could filter in merely 28 medical education aspirants from Karnataka out of the top 1000 at the national level, there must be something terribly wrong with the capabilities of students from Karnataka! Is it that the levels of competence of Karnataka’s aspirants so low that they got ‘exited’ in the entrance test? Is the quality of education at qualifying stage so poor in the state in comparison with that of other states? When an aspirant can score with a much high rank, but fails to repeat the performance at the national level, do we know if the failure is due to a defect with the state’s entrance examinations (CET) or something far too difficult to crack at the national level for a bright Karnataka student? Is, therefore, assessment of educational performance so vulnerable to regional specificities or common educational standards?
Will NEET enable only the children of the elite social groups who can afford to access the best of education in Karnataka, while children from Karnataka will be deprived of such an infrastructure and be compelled to settle for ill equipped institutions in far away and remote lands? Or, is NEET so neat a solution that answers to all such questions are to the comfort of those from Karnataka?
It is not as if the mismatch between CET and NEET ranks is among a handful of students. Instead, a large number of those from Karnataka who are within the top 1000 in CET mode are nowhere among the top 1000 of the NEET mode. Unless the state’s system of teaching, children’s ability to prepare and write entrance tests, not to mention the efficiency of coaching centres are so biased in favour of ‘sons/daughters of the soil’ that their CET is a cakewalk for the local kids. Pedagogic experts have an urgent and not an easy task in repairing the system that can produce such an unbelievable mismatch.
Equally worrisome is the other dimension of exclusion, that of children from non-metro, or the rural hinterland being placed at a disadvantage. Those in the top 1000 NEET ranks can hardly boast of the several social and economic disadvantages. Is NEET therefore a backdoor solution to keep the social responsibility towards the poor, regionally and socially disadvantaged aspirants of professional education aspirants?
What of the social returns to the state for providing for private educational enterprises? Hasn’t the state anything to expect as social payback for accommodating the largest number of private medical educational institution? Should they all now be thrown open to those from other states, but at the cost of almost foregoing opportunities for children from within the state’s vulnerable sections?
Yet another question of discomfort: can a nation risk to have a uniform pattern of assessment as NEET when there are multiple standards and patterns of education at the qualifying stage in its many provinces – the CBSC, ICE or the syllabi of respective state?
What fig leaf of a rationale can one hold to serve with one measure and assess with another?
Lest these questions suggest to be supportive of the populist theme of “out state is for our children,” one should hasten to qualify: prior to embarking upon a radical pattern of NEET, one must ensure that across the nation every child has had an equal opportunity to access the same pattern of education. Until one is satisfied that there is such a level field, at least a semblance of it, let there be some cushion for the local child: a certain percent of opportunities kept exclusively for the otherwise excluded.
The birth, growth and success of many professional educational institutions have been a result of the dreams and efforts by the state governments across the nation. Some states did much better than the rest, but they too were catching up. NEET can only be a simple tool of destroying the local initiatives. Instead, build many new institutions as exclusive perhaps as those in Pondicherry or Chandigarh and throw them open for NEETs. Until then, nurture professional educational institutions by facilitating their catering both to national and local aspirations.
Also to be noted is that this claim for local aspirations is not extended to the case of IITs, including the newly started IIT in Dharwad (Karnataka). It is an institution meant to be a National institute and to get admitted to any of its programmes an aspirant from Karnataka has to compete with those from other states too.
Convert the state or privately run Medical (and other Engineering colleges) likewise as National Institutions if NEET has to have a final say. Failing which, the CBSE has to be somewhat considerate of local limitations and extend a hospitable hand to the professional aspirations of the child from within one’s own state.
