Stoking a controversy, Tamil Nadu Governor RN Ravi, recently reiterated he will not give clearance to ban National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) in the state, against the demands of the Stalin-led DMK government. Responding to the controversial statement, Madras High Court retired judge AK Rajan, who had submitted a report on the ‘Impact of NEET on Medical Admissions in Tamil Nadu’, said that if the trend of compelling students to write NEET continued, there would be no doctors to serve the people in the villages, marginalised communities, and the poor.
In an interview to TNM, he said that the Governor’s remarks were unnecessary, and that he did not understand the gravity of it.
At the event ‘Enni Thuniga 'Think to Dare' - series 8’, held at Raj Bhavan on August 12, Ravi remarked, “I’ll be the last man to give clearance to ban the NEET. I do not want my children to feel intellectually disabled. I want our children to compete and be the best and they have proved it.” The Governor made this statement while responding to a parent who had asked about his clearance for NEET exemption Bill. Ravi was addressing the top scorers of the NEET UG 2023 entrance exam at the event.
Ravi’s remarks received severe backlash from critics of NEET and the ruling party.
The retired judge said that the Governor of Tamil Nadu does not have any authority to give assent to the bills that are already sent to the President for approval. “Ravi takes the NEET issue very lightly and makes unnecessary comments on important things. He cannot understand the plight students from different social and economic backgrounds go through to get the medical seats”, he said.
Talking about Ravi’s glorification of the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) syllabus, Rajan said: “Then why are there many students spending three to four years and a huge amount of money in private coaching centres to clear the NEET exams?”. Rajan also pointed out that the Union government has no role to modify or regulate the state government-run universities as per the constitution. “If the power to incorporate and regulate the universities is denied to the Union government, then how could it decide who can study medicine at state-run Tamil Nadu MG Ramachandran Medical University?”, he asked, adding that, if grade 12 exams qualifies students to enter into universities, what is the need for another entrance exam.
At the event, the Governor also claimed that many students cleared NEET exams without going to coaching institutions. “Because their schools and teachers taught them. The books they prescribe are CBSE books. That's the standard. If the standard (of the State board syllabus) is lower than that, don't blame the standard. You have to raise the standards. CBSE standard and syllabus is very good and NEET is not beyond that,” Ravi argued.
It is to be noted that Rajan in his report mentioned that: "The relation between achievements in standardised entrance exams and socioeconomic and other demographic disadvantages is one of the most widely replicated findings in educational research. Especially, in a country, where the society is graded hierarchically with social inequality and unequally segregated in terms of economic conditions, level of income, level of education, occupation, living standards, cultures, linguistic status, and geographical location, a standardised common entrance exam like NEET is more likely to exacerbate its reflection of all such inequities than to attenuate them”.
Right after the DMK party assumed office, it formed the committee headed by Justice Rajan in 2021 to study the impact of NEET. In September, of the same year, the committee submitted a 165-page report after receiving feedback and views from 86,342 persons regarding the NEET exam.
In the wake of the controversial speech of Ravi and the suicides of an NEET aspirant Jagadeeswaran, who failed to clear the entrance exam twice, and his father Selvakumar, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin wrote to President Droupadi Murmu on August 14. In his letter, Stalin demanded her assent to Tamil Nadu Admission to Undergraduate Medical Degree Courses Bill, 2021, which seeks exemption from NEET for Tamil Nadu. In the letter, Stalin points out that the delay in granting assent to the bill has caused immense anxiety and stress in the minds of people and have led to ‘sad incidents of suicides’.