BENGALURU: The cancellation of NEET-UG by the National Testing Agency (NTA) on Tuesday left around 1.45 lakh aspirants from Karnataka, including Bengaluru, in a state of dismay and disillusionment.
The cancellation followed reports of leak of the question papers, allegedly as early as May 1, with the test held two days later on May 3. As of now, no re-examination date has been announced.
For a 19-year-old student from Bengaluru, this was her first time appearing for the test, which now turned out to be a disappointing ordeal. “I attended coaching classes for a year at the Brilliant Study Centre in Thiruvananthapuram.
The first six months of the course covered the syllabus that was expected to be asked in the examination while the rest of the year focused on practice tests and regular mock tests. The questions that were covered in the mock tests were highly rigorous, due to which, the actual examination seemed easy for me. I hope there is no re-examination,” she said.
For faculty members of coaching institutions in Bengaluru and scores of their students, the announcement came as a collective disappointment.
Brahmaiah Mannam, dean at Vision Academy, said some students he spoke to were in extreme distress. “They are very disappointed. They were relieved after the test, some having prepared for two years or more. Some students spoke to me like their entire lives’ hopes had been lost,” he said, adding that for many students, their parents were equally inconsolable.
Both Mannam and Lakshmi Reddy, one of the academy’s directors, urged the need to abolish the centralisation of the examination, and proclaimed the need to hold it at the state level. “Political corruption puts students at risk, and they will be incentivised towards malpractises,” said Mannam. Reddy added that the monetary losses incurred by students from rural backgrounds are “indigestible”.