Clamour grows to delay NEET, JEE but govt firm
DEBATE Leaders raise safety concerns as testing agency says cannot put careers in jeopardy
NEW DELHI: With the number of coronavirus disease cases increasing steadily, several politicians have joined the clamour to postpone the Joint Entrance Examination (Main) and the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (Neet-undergraduate) after a large section of students made such a demand.
On Friday, politicians such as Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) Subramanian Swamy, Congress’s Vivek Tankha and the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD)’S Tejashwi Yadav raised safety concerns over the conduct of NEET ( for students seeking admission to medical and dental courses) and JEE (for those aspiring to join top engineering schools). But the education ministry said the tests will be conducted in September as scheduled. In a statement the National Testing Agency (NTA), which functions under the ministry and holds these exams, said a full academic year cannot be wasted.
Congress Rajya Sabha member Tankha sent a letter to Union education minister Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank’, urging him to postpone the exams. “The number of cases and the death rate have been increasing. If the situation persists, the country may have to face lockdown again. Holding exams at such a large scale leads to the threat of further escalation of the pandemic,” Tankha said.
RJD’S Yadav tweeted: “Central Govt, NTA, UGC & IIT Delhi must have a considerate & humane view of the plight of the students & youth of this country! This hurry to conduct exams amidst spiking Covid cases will prove to be costly! In Bihar floods+govt apathy will compound problems!” Similar views were expressed by a large number of students on social media.
BJP’S Rajya Sabha member Swamy, too, urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to conduct entrance examinations such as the NEET and the JEE after Diwali in the wake of the pandemic. But in a statement, NTA made it clear that it plans to go ahead with the exams and cited that the Supreme Court rejected a plea seeking postponement of the two entrance tests.
“In our opinion, though there is pandemic situation, but ultimately life has to go and the career of the students cannot be put on peril for long and full academic year cannot be wasted…the examination is going to be held with due precaution and it is not going to be postponed. Thus, we find no merit in the writ petition,” said the NTA statement, quoting the SC order.
The premier testing agency said it released the admit cards for the JEE (Main) examinations scheduled from 01-09-2020 to 06-09-2020. Altogether, 649,223 candidates have downloaded their admit cards against a total number 858,273.
“NTA is happy to share with the JEE (Main) 2020 candidates that it has been able to offer the first choice of preference of centre cities to 99.07% of the candidates. 142 candidates have, subsequently requested for a change in their allotted centre city due to various reasons, and the NTA is considering these requests positively,” the statement said.
The agency said NEET aspirants, too, were allowed to change their exam venue and 95,000 availed it.
“The NEET (UG)-2020 exam is now scheduled on September 13 and the total of 15,97,433 candidates are registered for the same. The admit cards will be released shortly. Overall, 99.87% candidates will be accommodated against their first preference of centre city,” it added.
The agency said it made elaborate arrangements to sanitise the test centres before and after the examinations, and will even provide masks and hand gloves to candidates if needed.
According to a government official, NTA reached out to top medical professionals for a “comprehensive plan to ensure all students and staff” are safe.
NTA has also developed a detailed protocol to ensure the exams are held following social distancing norms.
“The predicament is that there is no alternative to the highly competitive exams such as NEET and JEE for admission to coveted institutions like IITS (Indian Institutes of Technology) and top medical colleges. Therefore, it is important that these exams are held with utmost safety precautions,” said a second official.
IIT Delhi director V Ramgopal Rao said the JEE (Advanced), which is slated for September 27, will be held with all precautions and safety measures. “The number of centres has been doubled, computers will be sanitized and all safety measures have been put in place,” Rao told HT.
Prof Furqan Qamar, former secretary general of the Association of Indian Universities (AIU), said the Supreme Court had already given its verdict. “These are all related to admissions. Admissions need to be done otherwise students lose a year. The only thing is that all necessary precautions for social distancing and hygiene etc should be taken,” he said. Prof Ajit K Chaturvedi, director, IIT Roorkee, said: “We should go ahead with the exam as per the announced schedule.”