NEET 2024 has been one of the biggest failures of NTA (also ‘NEET minus E’ remaining another in recent times). With 67 students getting a perfect score, claiming the AIR 1, and over 1500 getting the ambiguously justified grace marks, the 4th June results for getting admission to the very few premier (and affordable) govt medical colleges are a complete mess.
As the govt and the Education Minister are somehow trying to brush the matter under the carpet by half-heartedly consoling the students on punishing the culprits (no matter how senior position they are designated at); one more institutional flaw is roiling another set of students with the govt cancelling the UGC NET 2024 just two days after the exam, on suspicion of the integrity of exam being compromised.
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| Photo by Nguyen Dang Hoang Nhu on Unsplash |
Four big takeaways from this whole deplorable chapter of paper leaks and institutional flaws:
1. From cloud nine to 'cloud whine': On one side you boast about the mind boggling advancements in technology, on the other, your premier testing agency can't organize an exam without lacunae. Former do give the ticket to you for chest-thumping and taking pride in telling the world about the phenomenal success of the UPI, smooth manoeuvring and desired landing of the Chandrayan 3, record manufacturing of mobile phones in the country, erection of the tallest statue, thriving unicorns in the country etc. But the blunders in conducting the national-level exams (forget state-level, they're hapless anyways) spill water over all the developments and open a barrage of critical comments against the government and its notorious child, NTA. Conducting smooth hassle-free free exams for over a couple of million students is no cakewalk and is always prone to tech glitches, quite understandable! But, if all the above, once unbelievable feats could be achieved in record time, then conducting a national-level exam irrespective of the number of participants shouldn't be a major issue. After all, it is directly connected to the future of the demographic dividend, that Bharat treasures the most.
2. The long-term ramifications: there exist tens of thousands of students who sacrifice their all - family, partners, and friends, burn the midnight oil, and leave no stone unturned in their studies for months and years to make a cut and get their names in the final list. With such irresponsible and condemnable mal-organized examinations, their dreams shatter, efforts go in vain, career planning goes for a toss, zeal & determination come down to an abysmal low, and mental agony completely takes over their solace of mind. True, these faulty exams don't put a permanent brake on the career trajectory of a student per se, but they certainly do pull the lever of anxiety and mayhem for a significant duration of time. And unfortunately, there always exist many a student who just can't keep accelerating their motivation’s cart with the tormenting brakes of anxiety on, collapse under pressure, and unfortunately bring their priceless life's race to a permanent halt.
3. A double whammy for the aspirants: a serious shortage of quality educational infrastructure, and a miserably low count of eminent medical institutions in the country are already bringing much agony to the young minds. With hardly over 50k MBBS seats in the govt medical colleges and around 100 thousand in total (MBBS seats) for a whopping over a million students, the cut-throat competition (just like any other competitive exam), grills the tender-aged students to the limits that are way beyond their bearable limits. This formidable competition, desperation and societal obsession for making it through to the dream institutions open a wide array of irregularities and ill practices in the entire cycle of exams benefitting very few, making many suffer, and eventually jeopardizing the lives of millions in the long run. A dishonest, characterless, and incompetent doctor is no lesser than an involuntary murderer with poignant surgical equipment in its hands, and bio/chemical weapons in his prescription.
4. Like engineering, like doomed: Just like the engineering profession, and a pool of unskilled and sub-skilled engineers have become a punching bag for everyone out there; if such crookedness in the exams and evaluations won't stop, the untoward day’s not far when the medical profession and the professionals will also go down the same lane. Irritated with the sorry state of the Indian education system thousands of students are already shifting their careers abroad that’s heavily costing the national economy and adding volumes to the brain drain. Having read the above three points, I hope the reason is quite evident to you now on why Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Georgia and Ukraine have become a Haven for medical students. (While in reality, the not-so-pretty stature of many of these foreign returnees (excluding the ones from the US and the UK) Doctors in India and their dangling future trajectory is something that not many aren't actually aware of).
Urgent, sensible, and reprimanding actions must be taken by the government to bring their delinquent kid in order, or else it’ll keep on cracking the dreams of thousands with its mishits. My heart goes out to the students, especially those who didn’t take undue advantage of the crutches of any sort of reservation, sincerely studied for years to achieve a top rank, but ultimately and quite disastrously got all their commendable results of hard work axed.