NEW DELHI:The Union government has decided to take affidavits from state governments on the accuracy of translated National Eligibility Cum Entrance Test (NEET) question papers from next year, Union Human Resource Development Minister Prakash Javadekar informed the Parliament on Thursday.
Javadekar was responding to an issue raised by AIADMK member Vijila Sathyananth regarding inaccurate translation of NEET questions in Tamil and the problems faced by students, during Zero Hour in Rajya Sabha.
She said 49 questions in the paper translated in Tamil were vague due to problems in translation.A PIL was filed in Madras High Court in this regard and the court directed CBSE to award 196 grace marks to affected students. The CBSE is contesting the direction in the Supreme Court as the additional marks threaten to overthrow the current ranking and merit list.
Javadekar said as the matter was in court, he won’t speak much on the issue but pointed out that the translators were provided by the Tamil Nadu government. The Minister further said that from the next year, the Centre would be taking affidavit from state governments that the translation done by their language experts was correct. The AIADMK member had also pointed out that students appearing for the NEET exam had to travel to distant places to write the paper.
To this, Javadekar said he has already ordered that from the next year there would be no displacement of students. As another member wanted to speak on the issue, Chairman M Venkaiah Naidu said the minister has assured the House that students need not go to other states and will have the facility to write the exam in their respective places.
The NEET is conducted by the Central Board of Secondary Education for admission to MBBS and other medicine related courses. From next year, the newly formed agency National Testing Agency will organise the tests.
NEET In Tamil
The Madras High Court had recently ordered the CBSE to grant 196 marks — 4 marks each for 49 erroneous questions — in the Tamil version of this year’s NEET to those who took the exam for medical admissions in the regional language.