[MTC Global] Sparks fly at debate on Tamil Nadu NEET viability

CHENNAI: The merits or otherwise of a countrywide National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) for admission to medical colleges has been a matter of dispute, but on a dull Sunday afternoon at the Chennai Trade Centrein Nandambakkam, the issue triggered a stormy debate.

Sparks flew as a panel of former Union health minister and MP Anbumani Ramadoss, former Madras high court judge D Hariprathanam and educationist Prince Gajendra Babu, all in favour of the Tamil Nadu government's opposition to NEET, emotionally countered arguments in favour of the test by former Anna University VC A Kalanithi, educationist T Rajagopalan and MCI member Dr L P Thangavelu.

When Justice Hariprathanam called the October 2002 TMA Pai Supreme Court judgment "the worst in 40 years" because "it laid the foundation for privatisation and increase in costs" of higher education, Rajagopalan stridently criticised his argument.

Anbumani said Tamil Nadu's samacheer kalvi syllabus was not of as high a grade as CBSE, so there was no basis for fair competition in the entrance test. Rural students and those who cannot afford coaching will be unable to crack NEET, he said.

"The justification of NEET is to improve the quality of doctors," Anbumani said. "[But] for that we need a bottom-up approach; the school syllabus has to be upgraded first. The current setup is top-down."

Imposing NEET on states like Tamil Nadu, he said, was akin to pushing an amputee to into a swimming competition.

Hariprathanam argued that NEET "would ensure that coaching centres replace educational institutions", and Gajendra Babu said NEET would rob a generation of the state's students of medical education.

Source: TOI

Amalendu, MBA
A proud MTCian

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