One day, all of your hard work will pay off

For the past few days, the word “NEET” has been doing rounds in the education space, and we have been hearing about court cases, results, counselling, that have shrouded this examination. NEET, is one of the prestigious examination of our country.

Let’s first look at what NEET is.

The National Eligibility cum Entrance Test is a nationwide entrance examination to secure admission to under-graduate medical courses. The paper comprises 200 questions out of which 180 questions are answered by an applicant. Each question gives 4 marks for the right answer and 1 negative mark for the wrong answer. Total maximum score can be 720. The duration of the exam is 3 hours 20 mins, with questions from Physics, Chemistry, Botany & Zoology. This year ~2.4M students appeared for the NEET examination. In 2024, this exam was conducted on May 5th.

Who conducts this prestigious examination?

NEET is conducted by the NTA (National testing Agency), which comes under the Ministry of Education of India. NTA also conducts the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE)

Now, with the basics in place, let’s dive into the issues that have surrounded NEET 2024

1. Rank Inflation and toppers of NEET 2024–67 students got full marks and shared AIR 1 compared to 2 students last year. This has increased the cut-off across all colleges leading to rank. Why is this of concern? AIIMS Delhi, one of the premier institutes of medical study in India, has only 48 seats in the general category, and with such results all those seats would already be taken, in a likely scenario. Also, it is being highlighted that 8 students of these 67 are from same center Jhajjar in Haryana, and 6 of them are in single sequence basis roll number.

2. Marking scheme and final marks mismatch — There are also cases of students getting mathematically impossible marks like 719, 718 which is not possible based on the marking scheme of +4/-1. If a student leaves a question, and gets the remaining right, s/he would score a 716. If a student gets only one question wrong, out of 180, s/he would get 715. The justification is that this has been the result of the grace marks allotted to students. But there is no clarity on how the grace marks were decided and allocated.

3. Concerns over sanctity of the exam — There were also several registered complaints about paper leaks. There have been confirmations from Patna about arrests made of 13 people, and of middlemen taking anywhere between 13–15 lakhs for sharing the leaked paper before the exam. In other states, few students were apparently given pre-marked question papers. Similar stories are also coming from other states like Gujarat.

NTA’s responses to all these issues have been unsatisfactory. They claim that 67 students have got full marks because one question in the Physics section of the exam was wrong, and everyone who attempted it got full marks for it. This issue of wrong question/answer is arising because of contradictory statements in the old NCERT textbook, as compared to the revised editions of the NCERT textbook. They also said that students got 718/719 as grace marks were given to 1563 students due to time issues, of getting papers late.

Students filed petition in SC against NTA. They sought cancelation of exam on account of speculated paper leaks and other malpractices. This has led to scrapping of grace marks students. 1563 students now have two choices, they either retake test (which is scheduled on June 23rd, with results to be announced on June 30th); or get new ranking with grace marks forgone. The education ministry has set up a 4-member committee to investigate further into the controversies. However, there has been no stay on the counseling process yet for securing admissions basis the ranking.

I would like to leave the reader with a few questions to be answered about competitive exams and about NEET. Please do share your opinion and feedback on the article in the comments section! In the end, I would also leave the reader with a thought to ponder upon. The exam is taken by ~2.4M students every year. For a few moments, let us take some time to imagine the grind and preparation that these students go through in their 11th/12th grade. They have one hope, to get into one of the best medical colleges of our country. Also, medicine is a very challenging profession, and the profession needs a high level of precision, accuracy, and trust.

Competitive exams, like NEET was introduced to solve the problem of writing different exams for different states and reduce pressure on students. It also was started to eliminate corruption in medical colleges, which were involved in selling seats.

1. NEET is based on CBSE syllabus and is therefore problematic for students who are enrolled in State Syllabus. There are also several complaints about the quality of translation into regional languages, making it an obstacle for students from rural areas.

2. In KOTA alone, the tenth suspected suicide case has been reported since January this year of an aspiring NEET UG student. The number was 26 last year. Do we put too much pressure on students, about their life being dependent on just 1 examination? We are riddled with shortages of colleges (only 612 medical colleges) and shortages of seats (strike rate of 4%) leading to even more pressure on students

3. Why can’t it be held online, like other competitive exams vs. an OMR marking sheet and pen paper model? Does online model have merit?

4. While NEET is a mandatory requirement, even for low ranking medical colleges you might have to pay a bunch of money on some pretext or other before final admission. This could range anywhere between 1–3 crores in private medical colleges. Which is why so many students are going to Easter Europe, China, Ukraine, Central Asian countries & Russia to study medical sciences, which is cheaper without pressure of passing NEET.

5. NEET charges INR 1700 for GC students, INR 1600 for OBC students and INR 1000 for SC students and PWDs. NEET makes INR 400 crores with this exam. On other hand UPSC charges just INR 100 for GC male students and it is free for all others — without ever any reports of malpractice.