The average accomplishment of Puducherry in National Eligibility Cum Entrance Test ‘does not definitely’ justify the claim of a robust system of school education in the region, former Member of Parliament M. Ramadass has said.
Making a detailed analysis of the results of NEET in the Union Territory, the academician-turned-politician said the percentage of students who qualified in NEET this year was only 52.6% which is less by about 3.7 points from the national average of 56.3%.
Of the 5,511 students who appeared for the exam, only 2,899 have passed or qualified. At the All-India level the success percentage is 76 in Delhi; 72.7 in Chandigarh; 70.5 in Rajasthan; 68.6 in Haryana; 67.7 in Punjab; 64.8 in Gujarat; 63.7 in Andhra Pradesh; 63.2 in Jharkand and 61 in Odisha. Even the performance of a Backward State like Bihar (56.5) was better than that of Puducherry.
Among 28 States and nine Union Territories, Puducherry attains a low rank of 23 and sixth place among nine Union Territories. Andaman and Nicobar (54.3) and Dadra Nagarhaveli (53.4) have outwitted Puducherry.
Stating that there was huge difference in the number of students cracking the exam from private and government run schools in the Union Territory, Mr. Ramadass said “available evidence indicate that the private schools of Puducherry have only contributed substantially to the NEET pass percentage and only a microscopic minority of Government School students have qualified in the NEET and that too with poor marks.”
A parallel of this phenomenon could be cited from the results of National Talent Examination (NTE) 2020-21 from which 22 students from Puducherry were selected by the Government of India and none was from a Government School depicting again a syndrome of low quality there, he added.
