It's Time To Kill NEET And Return Education To The State List. By G Pramod Kumar
There's a lot of anger
and anguish that's still erupting in Tamil Nadu over the suicide of Anitha, the
Dalit girl who was the visible face of the state's resistance to the central
government's national medical entrance examination, the NEET. For Anitha and
thousands of meritorious students like her, who would have otherwise gotten
into medical schools, what was snatched away was their hard-earned sovereign
right to higher education in an increasingly centralising India.
In a "Union of
States", where the architects of our Constitution had rightly ensured that
the states had sufficient autonomy to manage their affairs, instruments such as
NEET is an anomaly. In the case of Anitha, it was also a symbol for the tyranny
of the Centre that took away what rightfully belonged to her and the states.
NEET was a strange beast that young people such as Anitha were unable to figure
out because her education under the Tamil Nadu Uniform System of School
Education (Samacheer Kalvi) was not meant for an unsuitable
evaluation of her merit at a national level. NEET was ugly and scary for her
and thousands of others.
The Centre Cannot
Control Education In States
Presently, NEET is one
of the biggest injustices in India's uneven education system. It has created an
inappropriate filter that doesn't find real merit, but lets only those with
special entitlements pass through. Getting these entitlements, such as
crash-training in cracking MCQ requires access to an expensive,
premium coaching that people such as Anitha in the hinterlands of India cannot
afford. If states such as Tamil Nadu had been able to expand the access to
education even to the remotest areas because of years of hard work, filters
such as NEET mercilessly roll them back.
Education cannot be
taken out of the autonomous context of Indian
states.
There was a purpose
why the Constitution had left subjects such as education and health - the
pillars of human development - with the state government. And that's precisely
why every the Indian state has its own "state board" for school
education and appropriate syllabi. Education cannot be taken out of the linguistic,
socio-cultural and autonomous context of Indian states. In fact, the Kothari
Commission, that was convened in the 1960s to advise on education in the
country, wanted education to remain with the state despite its recommendation
for a nationwide standardisation.
Kerala, the jewel in
India's human development story, made all its early strides in education with
this autonomy, and Tamil Nadu has produced high quality doctors, surgeons,
engineers, scientists and academics with its own educational system and premier
institutions. But when it came to NEET, Kerala topped the list in South India
with 79.77 pass percentage, while Tamil Nadu fell to the bottom with 41 per
cent. The reason was not
quality or merit, but access. This is how unjust NEET is.
Politics
Surrounding NEET
Had former Tamil Nadu
chief minister Jayalalithaa been alive, Anitha probably wouldn't have died.
Jaya had clearly understood the need for autonomy in education and the
unsuitability of entrance examinations in her state. She abolished them in 2005
and hadvowed to put an end to NEET if she came back to power
in 2016. Although she did return to power, she was mostly sick, and had passed
away at a crucial time. Jaya had even promised new legislation if things didn't
work. But her legacy-holders - the splintered AIADMK that is obsequious to the
BJP-ruled centre for power and safety - are hardly interested.
Even without entrance
examinations, Tamil Nadu still tops the country in both quality and numbers of
technical talent. Its Anna University campus, which doesn't have an entrance
test, is as prestigious and coveted as the IIT in Chennai, and about 1.2 crore
students study under Samacheer Kalvi...
read more:
http://www.huffingtonpost.in/2017/09/04/medical-aspirant-anithas-death-shows-neet-is-one-of-the-biggest-injustices-in-indias-uneven-education-system_a_23196025/
