CHENNAI: Industries Minister Thangam Thennarasu on Thursday renewed the State government’s request to Governor RN Ravi to forward the Bill seeking exemption for Tamil Nadu from NEET, to the President. The Bill has been pending with the Governor for around four months.
The minister’s request comes a day after the Governor, in his Republic Day address, said the share of students from government schools at government medical colleges was hardly one per cent before the introduction of NEET. He had noted the “affirmative action” of 7.5 per cent reservation for government school students has improved the number significantly.
Referring to the remark, the minister said, “The 7.5 per cent reservation is only a temporary relief; exempting Tamil Nadu from NEET will be the permanent solution to the issues faced by the State’s students.” The minister pointed out that in the government quota merit list based on the NEET marks, 579 of the first 1,000 are CBSE students. The number of State board students is 394, and from ICSE and other boards is 27.
“The 7.5 per cent reservation may help to some extent in setting right this difference. However, students who are not able to get coaching from private centres by paying high fees are affected. For them, the medical course admission should be done based on the marks scored in their higher secondary course. For that, NEET should be exempted totally for Tamil Nadu,” the minister said.
To the Governor’s remark on implementing a three-language formula in the State, Thennarasu said: “Those who know the history of the language struggle in Tamil Nadu will understand that the phrase ‘other language’ used by the Governor only projected learning Hindi. After a long struggle, former Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru had promised that Hindi would not be imposed on non-Hindi-speaking States. Since 1967, after the DMK government assumed office, all successive governments have been following a two-language policy.”
“The two-language policy hasn’t hindered students’ educational aspirations and opportunities. I hope the Governor would have known this fact,” the minister added. The Governor, in his Republic Day address, had said that while it was important that Tamil language was given a wider spread across the rest of the country, it was also important for students from the State to learn other Indian languages like students from other States. He had added that depriving students of TN of knowledge about other Indian languages was unfair. Besides fostering brotherliness and better mutual appreciation, a linguistic intellectual, and cultural cross-pollination would enrich all and also open several opportunities for harmonious growth, he opined.