On NEET and CBSE failures, accountability cannot end with scapegoats |
At least three of the over 22 lakh students who appeared for the now-cancelled National Eligibility Cum Entrance Test (NEET) last month will not return to the examination hall when the test is conducted again later this month. The anguish and desperation of going through the gruelling process of preparation, reportedly, was too overwhelming, and they died by suicide. As the parents of one of these students told this newspaper, “This was his third NEET attempt. His exam had gone well. However, the news of the cancellation broke him from within”.
These unfortunate and extreme steps frame the challenge before policymakers in the wake of the cancellation of the entry test to the country’s medical institutions.
In a little over a month after the incident, government agencies have identified people who exploited the system’s vulnerabilities and ran cheating operations. Meanwhile, the controversy surrounding the CBSE’s rollout of its On-Screen Marking system has exposed another failure, rooted in institutional decision-making. Students alleged answer-sheet mismatches, blurred scans, unchecked responses, and evaluation anomalies, while reports, including in this newspaper, have pointed out that technical and operational concerns had been flagged during trial runs before the system was rolled out nationwide. Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan has admitted to moral responsibility for the........