Stalin, Mamata Banerjee and other leaders urge Centre to postpone JEE and NEET

 

Several leaders across the country are urging the Centre to postpone the JEE and NEET examinations amid ongoing protests. West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisoda have both asked the government to cancel entrance exams in view of the COVID-19 pandemic. DMK President MK Stalin has written to Minister of Education Ramesh Pokhriyal on the matter, and Maharashtra Tourism Minister Aaditya Thackeray has written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, asking that all academic activity, including examinations, be postponed as well.

 

Earlier, the Supreme Court refused to defer the exams, reasoning that the exams must go on with safeguards.

 

According to reports, the National Eligibility-Cum Entrance Test & Join Entrance Exam (Mains) 2020 exams will be conducted in the first week of September as scheduled. “The situation is not conducive to the COVID-19 pandemic but the career of the students cannot be put on hold,” a source reportedly told the Times of India.

 

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, according to ANI, noted, "With the Education Ministry's directive to conduct NEET, JEE 2020 in September, I would again appeal to the Centre to assess risk & postpone these exams until the situation is conducive again. It's our duty to ensure a safe environment for all our students."

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“In our last video conference with the Hon’ble PM Shri @narendramodi Ji, I had been vocal against the UGC guidelines mandating completion of terminal examinations in Universities/Colleges by the end of September 2020, which had a huge potential to put student lives at risk,” the West Bengal Chief Minister tweeted on Monday.

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“Now with the directive of  @EduMinOfIndia to conduct NEET, JEE 2020 in Sep, I would again appeal to the Centre to assess the risk and postpone these examinations until the situation is conducive again. It is our duty to ensure a safe environment for all our students,” the tweet noted.

 

In his letter to the education minister, Stalin noted that both students and parents “are under enormous mental stress, trying to cope up with the testing times.” 

 

“With the present restrictions on public transport, the allotted exam centres are not uniformly accessible to all and it will not be possible for students belonging to rural areas and less-privileged sections to reach the exam centres. They will be put under a great disadvantage against their affluent counterparts,” he continued. 

 

He explained that this argument was evident from the fact that around 35,000 students could not appear for the Higher Secondary Certificate exams conducted by the Tamil Nadu government in March. Stalin ended the letter, urging the Centre to postpone JEE and NEET exams until the pandemic was brought under control. 

 

The Union Minister of Human Resource Development on Friday said the JEE (Mains) and NEET would be conducted in September as scheduled. Delhi Deputy CM Manish Sisoda appealed to the Center to cancel the JEE and NEET. Sisoda also suggested alternative admission methods for this year.

 

He also tweeted, “The government is playing with the lives of lakhs of students in the name of JEE and NEET. I appeal to the Center of govt to immediately cancel both exams and adopt an alternative admission process (sic)”

 

Additionally, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi tweeted, "GOI must listen to the #StudentsKeMannKiBaat about NEET, JEE exams and arrive at an acceptable solution."

 

Aaditya Thackeray, in his letter to PM Modi on August 24, noted that holding the exams would put students, teachers and non-teaching staff, among others, at risk. “I humbly request you to intervene and postpone all academic activity to do with physical or online examinations across the country, for all professional courses, including entrance exams.”

 

The admit cards for the NEET(UG) are scheduled to be released shortly. The exam is scheduled to be held on September 13. A total of 15,97,433 candidates out of which 99.87% are given the choice of their preferred city. The JEE Exam is scheduled from September 1 to 6. Out of a total of 8,58,273 candidates, 6,49,223 have already downloaded their admit cards.