To hold or not to hold
Find innovative ways to balance academic needs with safety
The scheduling of the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) and National Eligibility-cum-entrance Test (NEET) has become a subject of controversy. The NEET, an entrance exam for medical colleges, is planned on September 13, and JEE Main, which for engineering colleges, is scheduled from September 1 to 6. The dates have been finalised after two rounds of postponement due to the pandemic. Both exams are competitive and students often enroll in coaching institutes years ahead to prepare. The Centre and pro-exam students argue that postponing the exams again would lead to the loss of an academic year, and additional burden for students. Those against the exams being held now say that many students are handling multiple crises — natural calamities, lack of safe transport, absence of accommodation near test centres, and the fear of transmitting the coronavirus to their families. Normalising school-leaving examination marks to arrive at a list may not be fair — many students focus more on these competitive exams than on the ones conducted by their boards.
Three issues are worth pondering over here. One, a public exam is not only supposed to test a student’s knowledge, but also provide a level-playing field to all students (holding JEE-NEET now may not offer that, but the alternative could do that even less). Two, the battle against Covid-19 is far from over, but strictly maintaining safety protocols can reduce the risk — provided the states and National Testing Agency (NTA) think through everything else, from the infrastructure to the transport students need. The NTA, which conducts the exams, has said that it has put strict protocols to ensure safety. Three, declaring a so-called zero academic year won’t affect just this year’s freshman batch but have a cascading effect for the next few years.
There is room for innovative solutions. For instance, NTA can go ahead with the tests but, along with the education ministry, it could also work on a second test for this academic year and create additional capacity in colleges for second-semester admissions. The ministry could also consider increasing next year’s capacity in colleges by, say 20%, and reserve it for this year’s school-leaving batch. On their part, even states opposed to this year’s exams should do all they can to help them be conducted. Instead, two extreme positions have been taken — and the young may end up paying the price for that.