In a statement given to press, DMK leader urges center to scrap National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET UG) from Tamilnadu. With less than a month to go for newly formed National Testing Agency (NTA) to launch online applications for NEET 2019, request to call it off in TN has been made. Stalin pointed out the 49 translation errors issue of last year, impact of NEET on rural students in the state, and step motherly treatment to vernacular languages.
Waiting for the registrations to start for 2019 session medical entrance exam, many students are opting for NEET 2019 crash course to accelerate their preparations. NTA will release NEET 2019 application form on 01 Nov 2018. The exam is scheduled to be held on 05 May 2019.
Addressing the centre, Stalin urges that students in Tamilnadu are adversely affected by NEET since the exam is although held in local language but in case of any discrepancy the details given in English language paper are taken as final. This factor played an important role last year when 49 translation errors were discovered in the NEET paper, thus leading to impacting scores of 24000 medical aspirants. 196 marks out of 720 were at stake due to translation errors.
Due to this reason, the party leader claims, students are shying away from taking NEET in regional languages. Whereas 90.75% students took the exam in English and Hindi in the year 2017, the number increased to 91.82% in 2018. The step motherly treatment meted out to regional languages is detrimental to students performances claim the party.
Rural students are directly being impacted as they are the ones who are in most need of having to appear in paper in vernacular language. Since they had to appear in a paper riddled with errors, their performance was poor. Last year, only 39.56% students could clear NEET. As compared to states like Rajasthan with 74% pass percentage, Andhra Pradesh with 73%, Telangana 69%, Uttar Pradesh 60%, Bihar 60%, and Madhya Pradesh 51%, it was at a comparatively low position.
NEET has been the bone of contention in Tamilnadu since its introduction. The prolonged legal tussles between governments on the matter had left the students in a fog until the last minute in 2017. That year, the pass percentage was 38.84%. The state witnessed only 0.72% improvement in results, which may have been higher had the language errors not happened.
As per official figures released by CBSE, that had conducted NEET exam until last year, exactly 24,720 students had registered for the Tamil language NEET exam. The language translation errors affected them all.
Earlier this year, the government had assured that students will get centres near their preferred locations only, and that translation errors will be taken care of. However the rule of English being the language to refer to, in case of discrepancy, might prevail.
What are your views on the matter? Do you think NEET should be scrapped in Tamilnadu or not? What steps should be taken by government and schools to ensure that students do not have to face the brunt of language gap in NEET and other entrance exams? Let us know your views in the comments section below.
