It’s fair to say that NEET, the national level medical entrance exam, has become a mess. Allegations of paper leaks, center level mismanagement, unfair marking schemes, mathematically improbable result patterns all abound. This is not only stressful to the millions of students who took the exam, but also to those planning to take it in the coming years.
Even with no irregularity, Indian entrance exams are already intensely stressful. For former Indian students, therecurrent nightmare during sleep is usually to do with an exam. NEET is extremely competitive. Some 24 lakh students take the test, aiming to get one of the 30,000 seats in good government medical colleges (figures approximate). This gives a selection rate of around 1.25%, or a rejection rate of 98.75%. There are some more seats for private medical colleges, but they are a) not as prestigious and b) are expensive to study in, sometimes costing in crores (compared to a few lakhs for the government ones). Even including the private colleges, the total medical seats cap out at a little over 100,000, giving an overall selection rate of around 3.3%.
The big fight is however, for the government medical college seats, or to obtain one of the top 30,000 ranks. Now imagine the value of obtaining this top rank in NEET. Ignore all morals, merit, hard work. Let’s just go pure greedy, shameless, crony-capitalist mode. What if you could auction and sell those top ranks? How much do you think they would sell for? You save in crores given the lower fee at government colleges. There’s higher prestige.You avoid the stress and hard work of preparation and save the coaching fee as well. Perhaps these top ranks could be sold off, in a greedy–pure-capitalist world at Rs 3 crores each. So, for the top 30,000 ranks, we are talking about a potential Rs 90,000 crore revenue opportunityannually, if we were simply ready to sell our souls. And this is why there is a massive incentive for things to go wrongin this exam. The story is similar in many other entrance exams – the money to be made in rigging them is massive. We are talking lakhs of crores worth of value held in these exams every year. For a nation that hasrarely prioritized merit and ethics, is it really surprising that a mini-industry has come up to make money off these tests?
For when did we care about fairness, integrity and merit anyway? It isn’t how our politics works. It’s almost always about identity – some mix of religion, caste, regionalismand nationalism. So why care now? The person who bought the leaked paper was of the same religion and caste as you. Maybe the guy who cheated was from the same state and a nationalist like you. Then why bother with silly things like merit? Why not sell everything? As long as your identity politics is in place, why do any of these things matter? If we can have crony capitalism, where certain corporates who pay up have an advantage, why not rich families buy seats for their kids?
But it does bother us, isn’t it? It makes us sick actually.
Mass level cheating in our few, extremely difficult but supposedly honest exams shakes us to the core. It isn’t just about the students. It is about all of us, who suddenly feel nothing is sacrosanct, nobody can be trusted and finally it is only power and money that talks. Exams like NEET, JEE, UPSC are some of the only outlets in our country for people to jump class. For someone to get a better life of dignity for themselves and their parents. They are extremely hard, but at least carry hope in a country with few avenues to rise.
Hopefully, this NEET fiasco wakes us up. It makes us realize that values such as integrity, honesty, merit, respect for hard work are above anything else. And thatthese values are delicate and need to be guarded. Humans are flawed. If there is massive opportunity to rig and cheat, some people in the system will indeed do so. Hence, we as citizens must stay vigilant. Students are the victims here but here’s a bit of feedback for them. They may not like to hear this, but since the last few years, the average Indian student has disconnected from politics. Lost in their Insta reels, YouTube, memes, OTT series and video games, they say ‘Who cares, politics doesn’t affect me. Let boring oldies do it.’ No, you must care. For if you don’t, you will suffer the most. How did NEET finally attract national attention? When enough students finally kicked a fuss. Stay engaged in your democracy. Don’t check out. Don’t think voting every five years and ignoring national issues otherwise is enough. Your regular vigilance isneeded to keep everyone accountable.
For this specific NEET situation, the problems all lead to one agency called NTA, or National Testing Agency. They conduct these high stakes exams without good systems in place. With lakhs of crores of malpractice possible, we deserve a better more full-proof organization. For exams like NEET, multiple papers need to be set, with nobody being aware which exact paper will be used on exam day. The centers must be reputable and secure. If enough good centers are not available, the exams can be phase-wise, like elections. For this, multiple question papers will be set, of equal difficulty and scores normalized. Conducting an exam with integrity is possible but needs the right value system amongst those conducting the exam. Leaking papers is essentially selling of seats. It isselling Indian merit, honesty and hard work. It is selling of India’s soul. We can’t let that happen.