Amidst a plethora of legal writs and controversies, the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET) 2017 (decreed as the sole entrance exam for admission into all medical and dental colleges in the country by the Supreme Court on April 11, 2016) was conducted countrywide on May 7. On June 23, the results of NEET 2017 were finally declared after the Supreme Court directed the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE), which conducts the test, to publish them. The declaration of results has come as a great relief to the 1.13 million students who wrote NEET 2017 for admission into 470 medical colleges countrywide offering 65,170 seats, and 308 dental colleges offering 25,730 seats. 

However, two days after NEET 2017 results were declared, the incumbent AIADMK government of Tamil Nadu issued an order stating that after surrendering the mandatory 15 percent of government medical seats in the state to the all-India pool, 85 percent of the remaining seats in the state’s 22 government and 10 private medical colleges, and four government and 21 private dental colleges will be reserved for class XII students of schools affiliated with the Tamil Nadu Board of Secondary Education (TNBSE) who have qualified in NEET 2017, and 15 percent seats for CBSE students. 

The objective of the AIADMK’s order to reserve 85 percent of government quota seats for TNBSE school students is to ensure that state board students aren’t shut out of medical and dental colleges in Tamil Nadu. There’s pervasive fear that because of a relatively weak curriculum and poor academic standards in the state’s 53,000 government and 10,934 private schools affiliated with the TNBSE, the majority of students in Tamil Nadu’s medical colleges will be out-of-state or students from the pan-India CISCE and CBSE schools.

This is the rationale of the two Bills passed by the Tamil Nadu legislative assembly on February 1 which exempt Tamil Nadu from the Supreme Court-mandated NEET for admission into undergraduate and postgraduate medical and dental colleges countrywide. If approved by the president, the current system of admitting students into the state’s 22 government, 10 private and deemed medical colleges/universities on the basis of their Plus Two scores will remain intact. 

But while TNBSE students who qualified in NEET 2017 are relieved that they stand a good chance of gaining admission into highly ranked medical and dental colleges in the state, CBSE schools in the state feel the government order is discriminatory and compromises merit in admissions. 

However, there’s the danger that the AIADMK government’s policy decision to reserve 85 percent of seats may not withstand legal scrutiny. “The AIADMK government has reserved 85 percent of government seats for TNBSE students without making a fair analysis of the exact number of students from TNBSE and CBSE schools who qualified in NEET 2017. There’s no reason to assume that CBSE students would have scored higher than the state board students. Moreover, the state government order is violative of students’ right to equality guaranteed under Article 14 of the Constitution and may not withstand judicial scrutiny,” says Dr. L.P. Thangavelu, founder-promoter of the PPG Group of Institutions, Coimbatore, and member of the Medical Council of India.

Although health minister Vijayabaskar argues that the basis for reservation is to benefit meritorious students from the state board, educationists believe the reservation defeats the purpose of NEET which is to ensure transparent, merit-based admissions into medical colleges countrywide and to eliminate profiteering by private medical colleges. 

Against this backdrop, it’s time the AIADMK government and other political parties in the state acknowledge that NEET is here to stay and focus on upgrading quality of school education in Tamil Nadu so that TNBSE-affiliated school students don’t require reserved quotas. The national interest demands that only the brightest and best competing on a level playing field, i.e, writing a common examination enter the much-too-few 470 medical colleges and 308 dental colleges countrywide.

Hemalatha Raghupathi (Chennai)