Chennai: Following the chaos that surrounded Neet in which many candidates from the state were allotted exam centres outside the state, Union HRD minister Prakash Javadekar on Friday assured students would not have to travel outside the state to appear for Neet from next year.
Around 13,000 candidates from Tamil Nadu were allotted exam centres as far as Rajasthan in Neet 2018 exam citing the surge in Neet applications. It has led to the chaos like situation as many students faced difficulties in reaching the centres following the confusion over exam centres. Several candidates also did not appear for the exam.
“I have already instructed authorities to accommodate Neet candidates within the districts. From next year, we will allot exam centre for any district which has more than 4,000 candidates,” Prakash Javadekar told reporters at IIT Madras on Friday.
The minister was at Indian Institute of Technology-Madras to take part in an event to mark the conclusion of the grand finale of the First Hardware Hackathon edition of Smart India 2018.
On new education policy, he said, “The committee is finalizing the National Education Policy draft. Within one month they will submit the draft and it will be given to the nation. The new education policy will take care of one generation form 2020 - 2040.” He further said there is no plan to introduce an entrance exam for engineering courses at this moment.
When asked about the MHRD’s plan to conduct Neet and JEE (Main) twice a year, he said, “CBSE is only conducting the exam. The decision has to be taken by the health ministry. So far, the exams are being conducted annually.”
While speaking earlier he said, "India lacks in innovation. Unless we innovate, we would not be prosperous. In India, we don’t even manufacture stethoscope or thermometers or many things. We only import. This is the reason why we need innovation and we need to produce.”
Totally 50,000 students participated in the hardware hackathon and worked on 300 problems including waste management, agriculture and medicine.
