Questioning the rationale of the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) in conducting the NEET based on CBSE syllabus, when only 5% to 10 % of the total candidates are from CBSE schools, the Madras High Court on Friday asked the Medical Council of India (MCI), whether or not it is necessary to make the exam a level playing field.
“It is stated that only 4,675 science group students from 268 CBSE schools have appeared for the recent NEET, whereas 4.20 lakh science group students were from State board schools in Tamil Nadu. But when the exam is based on CBSE syllabus, would it not enable the CBSE students to grab maximum number of seats in the medical admission,” a Division Bench of Justices N. Kirubakaran and V. Parhiban observed.
Questioning the MCI whether is it possible to determine the calibre or intellect or merit of the students by a single NEET conducted by CBSE, when the students are from different syllabuses, the Bench also wanted to know whether exclusion of academic performance in plus one and two examination would not make the students non serious about their school studies and concentrate only on NEET, that too without any practical examination.
The Bench further wanted the MCI to consider the appropriateness of combining plus two and NEET marks in equal percentile to determine the merit, and the possibilities of conducting NEET along with class twelve exams.
“Why not the MCI prescribe a uniform syllabus for Physics, Chemistry, Biology, and Maths throughout India to remove the disparity among various syllabus and whether the Tamil Nadu government is not responsible for dilution of standards of education in the State, as it has not taken any steps to revise the syllabus I tune with the times,” the Bench said.
The judges wanted to know from the State government as to why it should not appoint well-trained teachers in all the schools to prepare students for NEET.
The MCI and the State are to answer the queries by June 26.
