The anger of the students over NEET exams was not settled when the government cancelled the NET exam conducted by NTA, raising questions about its institutional integrity. Hundreds of protests have erupted across the entire country, demanding a re-NEET examination and accountability from the stakeholders. NTA has been accused many times earlier of discrepancies and incompetence in conducting exams like JEE. There should not be room for even small mistakes in important exams like JEE/NEET/NET/CUET. The students awarding of grace marks. A record of 67 candidates scored a perfect 720 out of 720, and multiple reports of question paper leaks raise serious questions about the exam’s credibility. NTA said that the grace marks were given according to the guidelines of the Supreme Court, but the Court’s guidelines exclude the Medical and Engineering exams. It has also denied the allegations of question paper leaks, while the Bihar government’s communication to the Centre proves that the question papers were leaked (68 out of 200 questions were matched from burnt remains of photocopies of the question paper). While denying that, very ironically, NTA has accepted that the NET question papers were leaked on the dark web and hence they cancelled the exam fearing the same reaction of students over NEET exams. Additionally, the NEET PG, CSIR-NET, and UGC-NET exams have been postponed, exacerbating the frustration among students.
Centralization of exams in a country where there is so much diversity and inequality raises a lot of issues. A uniform examination for all should happen when everyone has access to the same education. 55% of students still go to government schools where the quality of education remains worse than poor.
The rest go to CBSE/ICSE/IB Board schools. Sitting for a uniform exam while coming from such unequal backgrounds is hardly fair. Moreover, there are regional and language divides that make a uniform exam impractical. This leads students to opt for additional coaching classes, resulting in the mushrooming of a Rs. 58,000 crore coaching industry growing at 15% per year.
The coaching industry is a result of a failing school system plagued by poor governance. The system suffers from constant syllabus changes, an emphasis on rote learning instead of fostering inquiry and scientific thinking, low teaching quality and supervision, numerous vacancies, and inadequate infrastructure. Even the good private schools’ classrooms have become ghost classes because now the parents request the schools to give admission to their children without any compulsion of attendance so that they can attend their coaching classes.
The parents and students are forced to go to any extent to secure jobs, be it selling their land to get their children admitted in expensive coaching centres, bribing the officials, or even buying expensive leaked question papers. These problems shouldn’t be looked at in protesting against the injustices that happened to them. And it’s not a surprise as one of the masterminds behind all these scams is Ranjit Don, who is a very close ally of the BJP. Ranjit Don was fielded as a candidate by the Lok Janshakti Party (LJP), a BJP ally, in the 2015 biennial legislative council election in Bihar. Despite his dubious reputation, Ranjit Don has now become an ‘honourable’ man and a sought-after figure among politicians, particularly those associated with the National Democratic Alliance (NDA). His criminal record dates back over a quarter of a century, and he has been accused of leaking question papers for various competitive exams, including CAT, CBSE, medical entrance examinations, and PG medical tests. Instead of punishing the perpetrators, the state chooses to punish the protesting students and the families of students who die by suicide because of all these injustices and discrepancies. They are all victims of the larger problem. A problem that is decaying our education system and society as a whole. But the people are not stupid. With increasing scams and frauds, the state is exposing itself to the people, showing that they do not care about us but make their rich friends richer and happier.
Lastly, the centralization of exams like NEET/NET/JEE/CUET can be connected to the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 and the vision of the government to convert education into a commodity accessible only to those who can afford coaching and expensive schools. NTA’s failure to conduct all these exams shows that there is a structural problem that needs to be changed. Centralization of exams is not a solution but the opposite of it. It’s only going to help the coaching mafias and the ruling class make money out of it, while the masses remain uneducated and unemployed. There should be state-level exams instead of central exams to ensure fairness and inclusivity. Everyone should have the same quality of education.
