CHENNAI: NEET has adversely affected the social and economic policies of the State and has had a major impact on the students of rural and urban poor category, who studied in Tamil medium, finds the AK Rajan Committee in its report on the impact of NEET in Tamil Nadu’s medical admissions.The Tamil Nadu government formed the committee headed by Justice Rajan on June 10, this year and it was given a month to submit its report. The committee presented a 165-page report which took into consideration suggestions from 86,342 persons who had communicated their views.
Based on this report, the Tamil Nadu government passed a Bill, a week ago, to exempt the State from NEET, which awaits the President’s assent.According to the report, while a majority of socially disadvantaged communities such as MBC, SC, SC(A), ST and DNCs study in government schools, the Backward Class communities comparatively study more in ICSE, CBSE, matriculation, private, government aided, and Central government schools, while the Forward Caste/ (OC) communities predominantly study in CBSE or ICSE schools. This indicates how the income levels and accessibility of different social strata play a major role in school enrolment. Consequently, those who have higher parental income and CBSE-oriented education are likely to improve their performance in NEET simply because of the NEET’s CBSE bias, highlights the committee.
Further, the committee finds the admissions to the TN State Board of Secondary Education fell drastically in the post-NEET period (2017-2020). From the year 2011, the student size of the Board had consistently risen each year till 2017. But, after 2017, it slipped to 12.7 per cent, with a loss in student size of 1,13,322. Also, post-2017, the number of Tamil medium students gaining medical admission fell by 24.8 per cent, whereas that of English medium students rose by 8.4 per cent. According to the report, NEET discriminates against Tamil medium students as their share in MBBS seats has fallen from an average of 14.44 per cent in the pre-NEET period to a negligible 1.7 per cent in 2020-21.
The disadvantage caused by rural location is also one of the major factors affecting admission, the report points out. Approximately, there has been a 12 per cent drop (from 61.45 per cent to 49.91 per cent) in the share of rural students bagging MBBS seats and an equal rise in the share of urban students bagging seats in the post-NEET period. The committee attributes this to the inaccessibility of proper coaching and lack of training for NEET in rural parts of the State.The report shows that among students who secured admission in 2019-20, 99 per cent received prior training before appearing for the exam. Most had made repeated attempts at the exam to gain admission. This shows NEET promotes commercialisation and coaching culture, the report argues.
Key recommendations by AK Rajan committee
The Higher Secondary scores shall become the sole admission criteria for admission to First Degree medical programmes.
The socio-economic adversities that cause poor performance of the disadvantaged and underprivileged, in their HSc examination, shall be identified. According to the degree of intensities of adversities, a re-profiling of scores can be done using a pre-developed framework of ‘Adversity Score’.
The school education, up to the level of HSc, shall be reformed such that ‘learning’ is fostered and not ‘coaching’.
