NEET: Signature campaign gains support

In light of the Supreme Court order making the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) mandatory across the nation thus making the Common Entrance Test (CET) conducted by some states defunct, a signature campaign has been started demanding that scores of both the NEET and CET be accepted for admissions.

The campaign, started on May 8 on www.change.org, had garnered 826 signatures till publication. Around 85 other petitions have been started on the website, which have garnered thousands of signatures. The petitions have been started all over India and will be submitted to the Supreme Court, Prime Minister, HRD Minister, and other authorities.

Meanwhile, education minister Vinod Tawde has said that the state’s counsel will ask the Supreme Court for NEET to be conducted in regional languages as well. Mr Tawde also said that the state government would request the CBSE board to prepare a questionnaire keeping in mind the plight of non-CBSE board students who will be appearing for phase-II of Neet on July 24. However, students have complained of non-availability of CBSE books to prepare for NEET.

Addressing the concerns of the aspiring students from Maharashtra, Mr Tawde said that the state may consider filing another review petition but before that is done the state’s counsel in SC will be requesting the court to instruct CBSE board to have question papers in regional languages too.

“Due to paucity of time to prepare for NEET, the state will be requesting the CBSE board to prepare question papers considering the difficulty that students from rural parts of the state will face due to paucity of time to prepare for NEET on the basis of CBSE board syllabus,” said Mr Tawde.

However, students complained they were unable to get CBSE books in the market and hence were facing a problem in preparations.

Confirming the problem, Dr Pravin Shingare, director, Directorate of Medical Education and Research (DMER) said, “We received a lot of complaints from the student community about the shortage of CBSE textbooks. To address the issue we have written to the CBSE board asking them to upload the study material on the website so that students can download it and prepare for NEET,” said Dr Shingare.

Meanwhile, despite the vacations many colleges in the city have thrown open their libraries for students who want to refer to CBSE textbooks and study material. “Around 40 students from our college and some more students from other colleges living close to our college requested the use of the library. Seeing their dilemma we had to oblige the students’ request,” said Dr M.Z. Farouqui, principal of Rizvi College. Many other colleges have done the same and others are expected to follow suit.

Dr Sagar Mundada, president of the Maharashtra Association of Resident Doctors (Mard) while sympathising with the state board students said, “Rather than being bogged down, the students must know look at the positives that have come out of this. No different entrances, it saves time and money. Students don’t have to fill different forms and spend lots of money on it nor run all over the country to give multiple entrance exams of different colleges.

NEET has potential to weedout corruption in admission in medical colleges. Admission will be intelligence-based rather than money-based. Lastly, there will not be any discrimination.”