MADURAI: With the NEET results having been announced on Monday, the students who began to write NEET examination hours late at Noyes Matriculation Higher Secondary School here on May 6 as the centre received question papers in Hindi, and their parents are a disappointed lot. They feel the delay led to elevated anxiety among the candidates, affecting their performance that resulted in a poor show and they continue to raise doubts over the evaluation of the photocopied OMR sheets.
Earlier last month, in a major embarrassment for the CBSE officials, the centre in Narimedu received 100 NEET question papers in Hindi when the examination centre primarily had rural students who had studied in Tamil medium. This fiasco led to hours delay where 22 students began to write NEET at 12.30 pm with a 2.5 hour delay and 90 students at 3 pm when the exam should have begun at 10 am in accordance with CBSE guidelines.
The school management, based on the instructions from CBSE, took photocopies of one of the four sets of question papers and distributed. The school retained those photocopied question booklets of all the 112 students to be submitted to CBSE. As the students were asked to mark a change in code on the OMR sheets in writing, students and parents voiced their scepticism about the validity of their OMR sheets.
Due to this parents and students demanded a copy of the photocopies question booklet from the officials at the school for record and for using it to check the answer key. Reading out a circular by CBSE, S Venkateshan, a CBSE-appointed Observer at the exam centre said that the booklets would be returned to the respective students through post in 15 days.
The parents and students however state that they never received the question booklets as promised by CBSE, due to which they were not able to check with the answer key. When contacted by Express, Sanyam Bhardwaj, Director of NEET (New Delhi) said, "As the evaluation process took longer than expected, we could not send it through postal instead emailed them to their respective registered email ids in pdf format."
M Logetha from Aruppukottai who obtained 1061 in class XII examination scored 75 in NEET. Denying CBSE's claim, her father, S Mariyappan, a school teacher told, "We never received any question booklet as promised by the CBSE, by post or by e-mail. Due to it, we could not ascertain the right answers and the estimate score, making use of the answer key.
My daughter lost her hope on the very day of examination. She who finished her exam at 6 pm said she had forgotten concepts due to the confusion that prevailed inside the exam hall for hours together.
She who is upset over the results feels she could have performed better had the goof-up not have taken place. Consoling her, we have placed before our upset daughter alternatives like a degree in veterinary science, agriculture and dietetics as she cannot afford to lose another year attempting NEET again next year."
Meanwhile, S Nagendra Prasath of Sukkampatti village in Karur district who scored 1032 in class XII examination expressed a strong cloud of suspicion on the method of evaluation of their OMR sheets. He who began the exam at 3 pm stated that as tension mounted with every passing hour, forgetfulness caught up."
Son of a casual labour couple, unwilling to give up his passion of becoming a cardiologist, he plans to give a second attempt of NEET next year.
A Thirumurugan, father of Amritha who scored 96 in NEET last year attributes the fiasco for her low score of 51 this time.
Responding to the doubts raised over the evaluation of the OMR sheets of these 112 students, Sanyam Bhardwaj responded, "The results have been declared only after both electronic and manual evaluation."