NEET disaster underscores all that’s wrong with India’s entrance exam system

[00:00:00] Hello and welcome to all Indians Matter, I am Ashraf Engineer. The latest controversy over the National eligibility come into its trust under graduate or need has brought into shock focused the decline of India's entrance exam system. Paper leaks and corruption are common calling into question the effectiveness

[00:00:28] of the system and where it leaves aspirants. The leak of papers and release of incorrect results is common and they have been connected to several students' suicides. Meet formally known as the All India pre-medical test as a nationwide entrance exam conducted by the National Testing Agency

[00:00:43] or NTA for admission to undergraduate medical programs. It is a very tough exam and has held annually for admission to medical, dental, Iyush and Bachelor of Veterinary Science and Animal Husband recallages. This year at least 67 students got perfect scores against the average of 2 or 3

[00:01:00] per year. Grace marks were awarded to more than 1,560 students for unclear reasons and the paper was leaked. All this led to great anger amongst students and rocked Parliament leading to the government canceling results. What's wrong with India's examination system and how

[00:01:16] do we fix it? Entrance exam season is a period of dread for students and their families. In India such tests are critical because they are doorway to medical and other professional degrees which are highly sought after. The results often dictate not just the economic but

[00:01:40] social status of families. They determine social mobility in many cases which raises the stakes substantially. This year's neat controversies only the latest in a long series of scandals involving paper leaks which have become common now. Over the past seven years

[00:01:54] they have been 70 confirmed paper leaks in 15 states raising doubts about the integrity of these leaks affected 1.7 crore applicants with this year's paper leak affecting 24 lakh aspirants. So what exactly went wrong this year? On May 5, 24 lakh students appeared for the

[00:02:12] exam at 4,750 centers in 571 cities including 14 international locations. The result declared on June 4 led to an outcry with aspirants raising multiple issues. As per the result 67 students got a perfect score of 720 and a newly high percentage compared to previous

[00:02:31] years's. Last year for instance only two students achieved the perfect score in 2022, there were 3, 2021 and 1 in 2020. Six of these years' topers appeared for the exam at the same center in Hariana and let's not forget the paper leak either. The NTA initially justified the results saying

[00:02:49] that three lakh more candidates took the exam this year which is what led to the increase in the exam was easier than previous years' students argued that after the maximum score of 720 the next highest score possible was 716 yet there were students worth score 718 and 719 indicating

[00:03:08] irregularity. The NTA and its part said that some candidates including six of the topers had got compensatory marks for quote and quote loss of time. NTA is an interesting history. Its introduction was actively considered in 2010 at the Ministry

[00:03:22] of Health to address three specific problems. First, standardising competence of students and trained medical colleges because the majority of them were found to have negligible knowledge of even basic chemistry, physics and biology. Second, reducing the number of entrance tests

[00:03:36] from an estimated 46 to 1. Lastly, to eliminate capitalization fees levied by private medical colleges by reducing the discretion in granting admissions and basing it on scores instead. Implementation of the so-called one exam need policy was attempted in 2013 but the supreme

[00:03:52] code suspended it after private colleges petitioned saying the exam had taken away the institutional autonomy. It was only in 2016 that a five judge bench restored need. However, there was another challenge. What should be the standard for the exam because India does not have a uniform standard

[00:04:08] for school education. Central government schools follow CBS syllabus states have the own syllabi that are easier and now we also have the international baccalaureate or i.e. in many high end private schools. With such variations it's virtually impossible to arrive at a informed

[00:04:23] standard. With the bias towards CBS in need, students clearing state exams have been forced to sign up for quote and classes. The coaching industry has laughed all the way to the bank growing to an

[00:04:33] estimated 58,000 crore piece in size and growing at 15% annually. It's very existence is the result of a failed school system plagued by problems such as stinkering with a syllabi, a focus on route learning, poor quality of teaching and many others. The NTA was constituted in 2017 to conduct

[00:04:51] entrance examinations such as need but has been at the center of controversy since its establishment with complaints of irregularities. Tamil Nadu oppose need from day one. It argued that it has a perfectly functioning state policy of linking medical college admissions to high school performance.

[00:05:07] In 2021 Tamil Nadu formed an expert committee headed by Justice Ake Rajan, which presented evidence of rural students from Tamil medium schools losing out. Between 2017 and 2021, from an average of 15% of admissions of Tamil medium students, the number failed to 1.6% to 3.2%. The number of rural students admitted to government

[00:05:27] medical colleges fell from 62% to 50%. Tamil Nadu's fears were well founded because its good public health system has as its foundations students from rural backgrounds willing to work in primary health centers unlike the upper and middle classes who have the

[00:05:40] sites on foreign lands. Tamil Nadu made several requests to the Ministry of Health to review need and even pass the law scrapping the need to pass need for entry into medical colleges. However,

[00:05:50] the centrally appointed governor never gave it his assent. That need means a revamp is beyond argument among the ideas floated are making MBBS a 6 year degree with the pre-medical year to bring students up to certain standards in critical subjects' exology, chemistry and physics. There is also

[00:06:06] suggestion to decentralize the exam to states and universities as it was pre-need. India of course is not the only Asian country to grapple with entrance test for institutions of higher education. China for instance has the gauk out a 9 hour entrance exam that is referred

[00:06:21] to as the pressure cooker test. Besarly some disciplines come to the exam when you equip but intravenous trips so that they can get through the exam. South Korea meanwhile suffers from high suicide rate amongst students because of a system geared towards test taking.

[00:06:35] India is up to the education and health ministries to get it right. In its present form, need is not fulfilling its purpose. The high demand for medical college seats makes a system ripe for corruption. The long term solution of course involves improving school education,

[00:06:49] decentralizing exams and strict oversight. Perhaps the form of university model is a good one. They take entrance exam scores as just one of many inputs, others include long term academic records, personal interviews etc. As long as a high premium is attached to such exams they will always

[00:07:05] be vulnerable to irregularities. In fact earlier this year as parliament was debating the public examinations prevention of unfair means bill there was ironically another leak. This was a paper for the constable recruitment examing of the Pradesh. Such leaks underscore not only

[00:07:19] loop holes in the exam system they also lead to panic and frustration amongst students who feel their futures being jeopardized. The public examinations prevention of unfair means that specifies severe penalties for culprits with a prison sentence of not less than 3 years.

[00:07:33] The act covers exams conducted for all central recruitment agencies and the NTA. However we will restrict to law solve the problem many states including Gujarat Rajasthan Thur Pradesh Uttarakhandharkhandh Chathisgarh Anru Pradesh Anudhisha have legislation criminalizing cheating however exam related crimes continue. Any exam that people have

[00:07:53] confidence in must be reliable and standardized. Measure what it intends to measure and remove all scope for security in the evaluation. The process setting the question paper and showing against leaks and evaluation must be watertight. However the reality is that from

[00:08:08] setting question papers and the printing transporting the completed answer she is to evaluation centers the entire process is compromised. No aspect of it has ever been audited by a third party. Much of the problem lies in society and our emphasis on doing well

[00:08:22] in such exams this leads to desperation and in turn the rise of organized cheating in the form of Apriliques and other regularities. Indian needs a foolproof system. Until that happens students will feel that the future is in the hands of the corrupt and a system that can be

[00:08:37] easily manipulated by those who can pay. Catch you again soon.