An Unfair Test

Context: The Justice A K Rajan committee, appointed by the state government of Tamil Nadu, concludes that NEET gives unfair advantage to students from privileged backgrounds.

Issues associated with NEET

• Give an advantage to students from privileged backgrounds: It jeopardise the envisaged benefits of equality of opportunity and distributive justice.
  • Bias in curriculum: As it is biased towards the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE), which unjustifiable in an immensely diverse country, where varied school curricula coexist with a highly unequal access to financial and educational resources and opportunities.
• Based on wrongful concept of “parity of participation”: As the terms and conditions of participation are highly unequal and biased.
  • NEET promotes a kind of competitive equality which is socially insensitive.
• Regressive and exclusive processes behind success in NEET: Coaching culture, effectively crush the poor and marginalised students’ “capacity to aspire”.
  • NEET has helped to create an “extractive industry of coaching” as an essential condition for clearing it.
  • Coaching fees are not only high, but are beyond the reach of many, especially the poor and marginalised.
• Psychological consequences on students: Worsening signs as the number of suicides among NEET aspirants are on rise.

Way Forward: Restructure the focus of NEET keeping in mind the spirit of National Education Policy (NEP) and varied school curricula in regional languages.