Irate students call for scrapping of exam following NEET question paper fiasco

Kolkata: After the question paper fiasco in the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) 2018, the medical aspirants from Bengal, including the HS toppers of the previous academic year appearing for the medical entrance examination with Bengali as the medium of examination, demanded scrapping of the exam.

They also urged the state government to conduct its own medical entrance examination, as it was done earlier. It may be mentioned here that before the introduction of NEET, the West Bengal Joint Entrance Examination Board used to conduct the medical entrance examination.

Many of the candidates who topped the HS examination last year have appeared for NEET 2018, but faced difficulties as the Bengali translation of most of the questions was done wrongly.

Vehemently opposing the implementation of NEET, many of the Bengali medium students have decided to appeal to the Chief Minister, to strongly deal with the issue.

They will urge Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee to take up the issue with the Centre and take necessary steps to cancel the examination. They also demanded that the Centre must allow the respective state governments to hold their own examination, as was done earlier.

It may be mentioned that following the question paper debacle in NEET 2018 held on last Sunday, the Chief Minister has written to the Union Human Resources Development minister Prakash Javadekar, demanding a re-examination.

Debasish Saha, a medical aspirant who had ranked eighth in HS last year, said that if the Centre continues with this single-level entrance examination in the country, it would be disastrous for the students appearing in the vernacular languages.

He alleged that the state boards were being forced to emulate the CBSE syllabus, in the name of implementing NEET. Bengali medium students, who always achieve good results in the state-level medical entrance exam, perform pathetically in NEET.

Noureen Hossain, another top ranker in HS last year, said that NEET's design is starkly favourable to the CBSE syllabus and hence, it creates an educational imbalance. Students from state educational systems will be deprived in this format of examination, she added.

Many of the Bengali medium students appearing for NEET this year, viewed that it was devised in English and extended to Hindi. But those educated in vernaculars are the worst sufferers. They also said that the common entrance exam may spell doom for the majority of medical aspirants from the state boards.

Shreya Dutta, who appeared for the examination with Bengali as the medium, said: "The poor students who were unable to afford the exorbitant training required to be successful in national examinations, would not be able to compete with the urban students studying in CBSE board schools. A single-level examination cannot be implemented throughout the country, where there are multiple languages and different cultures."