NEET call won’t aid city students: Experts

With the state government claiming victory for students and their parents after getting the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) stayed for admissions to government-run medical and dental colleges this year, senior academicians and experts say that urban parents and students will not benefit from it and their campaign to have MH-CET scores restored for admissions will be in vain as most of the 2,810 seats on offer will be grabbed by students from rural parts of Maharashtra.

Elaborating on the situation, J.M. Abhyankar, former chairman of the Maharashtra State Board of Secondary and Higher Secondary Education (MSBSHSE), said, “If one goes by previous years’ records it can be clearly seen that most of the 2,810 seats in government-run medical and dental colleges are filled up by students from the interiors of Latur, Nanded, Parbhani, Aurangabad and so on. Only a handful of students from cities such as Mumbai, Pune, Kolhapur and Nagpur manage to get a seat based on the MH-CET scores.”

He further explained that the phenomenon was due to the fact that students from the rural areas follow the Latur, Parbhani and Nanded pattern, which puts students through rigorous preparations for a two-year period when they are in Class I0 and 12. “The students stay in residential schools and are put through long hours of studies each day and are literally cut off from society, their homes and all technological distractions. This is not possible for students from large cities and hence, they do not do as well as students from the residential schools,” said Mr Abhyankar.

Basanti Roy, former secretary, Mumbai division, MSBSHSE, concurred and said, “The students from rural areas learn by rote and are so well prepared for the MH-CET that city students cannot compete with them. A few major coaching classes in the cities have realised this and have started following the residential school pattern. The only avenue left for city students are private colleges. So, I feel that the agitations by city parents will not be useful for their children and they will have to appear for NEET as not doing so will rob them of a chance of applying to private colleges.”

She further added that the Latur, Nanded and Parbhani patterns, while useful for securing admissions in government-run medical and dental colleges, were not very useful to the students as most of them start faltering while pursuing medical education.