CHENNAI: There has been a significant increase in the number of students appearing for NEET in Tamil language - from 1,017 students in 2019 to 31,965 this year. After the State government announced 7.5% reservation for government school students in medical seats, the number of students opting to write the examination in Tamil language jumped to 17,101 in 2020 and 19,868 in 2021.
Experts say that the number of students opting for Tamil language has risen mainly because of the 7.5% quota as it increased their chances of getting into medical colleges. “Most of the government school students are well-versed in Tamil and prefer to write the examination in their regional language,” said K Ramakrishnan, a retired government school teacher.
However, students and government teachers have complained about the lack of quality material in Tamil to prepare for the examination. “Most of the questions in chemistry were statement-based this time and it took us a lot of time to understand them. The books we referred to while preparing for NEET didn’t have that type of content. So we faced difficulties in answering them and it consumed a lot of time,” said one of the government school students who cracked NEET. She also urged the government to concentrate on preparing better study material in Tamil to make the preparation easy for students attempting the exam next year.
While the questions in NEET are based on NCERT syllabus, there is no plan to prepare any study material based on the syllabus due to the State government’s stand against NEET, said sources in the school education department.
“The approach of the state syllabus and NCERT syllabus itself is different. Our students are scoring in the examination only in biology at present. It is difficult for them to attempt physics and chemistry in the exam,” said a school education department official