CHENNAI: Chief Minister M K Stalin on Saturday urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to keep the admission modalities for allied health courses (AHCs) within the jurisdiction of state governments as also to keep NEET out of these admissions.
In a letter to the PM, the CM said that prescribing mere appearance in NEET as a qualification is devoid of logic. “Globally, academic eligibility is defined either by passing an examination or by securing a high score in it. Mandating only an appearance has no academic rationale and appears designed solely to normalise and expand NEET across society. This would only end up forcing millions in the country to avail of coaching, thus profiting NEET coaching centres at the cost of poor families.”
The National Commission for Allied Healthcare Professions (NCAHP) under the Union Health Ministry in a letter to the chairperson of the National Testing Agency (NTA) on January 9 had asked the agency to include admission to two undergraduate programmes – Bachelor of Physiotherapy (BPT) and Bachelor of Occupational Therapy (BOT) – through NEET from academic year 2026-27. That is, NEET has been made mandatory for admission to these two courses.
However, the NCAHP said there shall be no minimum qualifying marks or cut-off percentile requirement for applying for the admission. Candidates must have appeared for NEET conducted by NTA for the academic year of the admission. In his letter, Stalin said this hasty and ad hoc decision has multiple deleterious consequences and therefore needs to be withdrawn immediately. Tamil Nadu has been steadfastly opposing NEET for MBBS admissions and has all along been cautioning about the danger of this being extended to other courses.
The CM said that unfortunately, the worst apprehensions of the state government have come true. It is evident from the recent communications from the Union Health Ministry that NEET is being prescribed for two courses as a “first step of a larger plan to make it mandatory for all allied and healthcare courses in the future. This attempt, being made without due consultations with the state governments which are constitutionally in charge of both health and education sectors, is totally unacceptable to the state”.
The CM also said the introduction of NEET for MBBS admissions has forced 1.4 lakh students to avail of costly coaching for the test to compete for 12,000 seats. “This has created unnecessary costs, stress and anxiety for the families and has rendered the performances in school examinations redundant. Extending this flawed model to a larger canvas of AHCs will only aggravate the situation.”
The number of AHC seats in TN is more than 50,000, and lakhs of students who aspire to take admission are from much poorer socio-economic backgrounds as compared to MBBS aspirants.