CHENNAI: Close on the heels of amending a Central Act to enable the conduct of jallikattu, Tamil Nadu government on Tuesday introduced two bills in the Assembly to exempt medical aspirants in the State from appearing for the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET), made mandatory by the Supreme Court, for both graduate and postgraduate courses.
According to the bill, students would be selected for MBBS and BDS on the basis of Plus Two marks while for the PG courses, besides an entrance examination work experience of candidates would be taken into account as was the case before the apex court ruling.
However, unlike in the case of jallikattu where the Centre and State moved in tandem, there are uncertainties over these bills getting clearance.
“The Supreme Court had ruled against providing exceptions to any state. So we have to look closely at the bill that the Tamil Nadu government introduced in the Assembly before clearing it,” Union Health secretary CK Mishra told Express.
The Tamil Nadu Admission to MBBS and BDS Courses Act, 2017, proposes to fill 85 per cent of seats based on Class XII scores through a single-window counselling. The scores of students from other boards would be normalised. The remaining 15 percent would continue to be filled based on All India Pre Medical/Dental Test (APIMT) results.
Under the Tamil Nadu Admission to Post Graduate Courses in Medicine and Dentistry Act, 2017, admissions would be based on the candidates’ scores in State-level entrance test and work experience.
While self-financing colleges have to surrender half the seats to the government, it is 65 per cent for non-minority institutions. There would be no change in reservation policy.
Introducing the bills in the Assembly, Health Minister C Vijayabaskar noted that the policy decision was arrived at to protect the interest of students from poor and rural background, who have little or no access to coaching classes to crack the national common test.
In Tamil Nadu, majority of students study in State syllabus whereas the NEET is mostly based on CBSE content. This, the government argued, was disadvantageous to majority students in Tamil Nadu. On the other hand, he added, Class XII exam itself was a serious examination of merit, which obviated the need for NEET that might create additional stress.
Last April, in an attempt to bring in uniformity in medical admissions, the Supreme Court had made common national level test mandatory. Tamil Nadu among other states opposed it and government-run institutions here were exempted from uniform entrance test for a year.