With Kannada out of the six regional languages in which students could write the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET), the State government has written to the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare requesting it to include Kannada in the list.
On December 19, after holding consultations, Union Health and Family Welfare Minister J.P. Nadda took to Twitter to announce that the students could write NEET in Tamil, Telugu, Marathi, Gujarati, Bengali and Assamese, apart from Hindi and English.
From the 2017-18 academic year, NEET will be the only gateway for a seat in medical or dental colleges. The Common Entrance Test (CET) for admissions to engineering, agriculture, pharma and other courses will also have a bilingual question paper this year.
Speaking to The Hindu , Medical Education Minister Sharanprakash Patil claimed that the State government had told the Ministry twice during consultations that having a question paper in Kannada and English would help students from rural areas as most of them study in Kannada medium schools. Following requests from students and other organisations, including the Kannada Development Authority (KDA), the State has written to the Centre again, he said.
Meanwhile, after the announcement was made, the KDA also wrote to Union Human Resource Development Minister Prakash Javadekar expressing displeasure at Kannada being dropped from the list.
It termed the move as discriminatory to the students in the State.
Manu Baligar, president of Kannada Sahitya Parishat, has also written to the Union and State governments to press for conducting NEET in Kannada.
