NEET Killed Anitha
The
suicide of Anitha, a bright Dalit woman student of Tamil Nadu, has
underlined the deeply unjust and biased NEET (National Eligibility Cum
Entrance Test) medical entrance test. Anitha had been one of the
petitioners from Tamil Nadu in the Supreme Court against NEET. The
petitioners had pointed out that while NEET is being introduced in the
name of bringing uniformity to the medical entrance test countrywide,
the question papers in various Indian languages were more difficult than
the ones in English. In other words, not only was there no uniformity,
the NEET discriminated against candidates writing in Indian languages.
Students
like Anitha – from desperately poor and oppressed households in Tamil
Nadu – dreamed of being able to get a chance to study medicine, based on
their good performance in school board exams. But the NEET tended to
favour those with a CBSE schooling.
Both
the Tamil Nadu Government and the Central Government have Anitha’s
blood on their hands. The Tamil Nadu Government after posturing against
NEET eventually settled for just one year’s exemption from NEET and
accepted NEET in principle. It failed to push the Central Government to
keep its promise to support the exemption of Tamil Nadu from NEET, in
the Supreme Court. The Centre did a U-turn which led to a Supreme Court
ruling imposing NEET. Anitha, who had performed extremely well in school
exams, did poorly in the NEET exam and, her dream of becoming a doctor
shattered, committed suicide.
The
Vyapam scam had brought to light the dirty underbelly of medical exam
scams in the country. The vicious corruption as well as deep seated bias
in medical entrance exams plays havoc with the dreams of India’s
younger generation, especially those from the most oppressed and
deprived backgrounds.
No comments:
Post a Comment