For this year, admissions to medical courses will take place on the basis of NEET.
Tamil Nadu passed a new bill on Monday to stop admission in medical courses on basis of the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test. It would, however, not take effect without a sign-off by President Ram Nath Kovind, since it challenges a central law.
Here are the top 10 points on NEET in Tamil Nadu:
- If the Tamil Nadu Admission to Undergraduate Medical Degree Courses Bill gets the Presidential assent, students in the state will be able to get entry to medical colleges on basis of their marks in Class 12 board exams.
- It can, however, take effect only from the next year. For this year, admissions will take place on the basis of NEET.
- All parties, except the BJP, had supported the Bill in the state assembly. "We are supporting this. Let's see if this strategy works," said opposition AIADMK's former health minister Dr C Vijaya Baskar.
- The Dravidian parties in Tamil Nadu have always opposed national entrance exams arguing they favour affluent students who can afford private coaching and that poor and rural students are at a huge disadvantage.
- For nearly a decade, Tamil Nadu had no entrance examination for medical admissions and made medical admissions on the basis of class 12 marks. During the UPA rule, the DMK managed to get the Presidential assent for exemption. But the AIADMK failed to an exemption from its ally, the BJP.
- This time, in June, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin formed a committee headed by retired justice AK Rajan to study the impact of NEET and the mushrooming coaching centres.
- On the basis of its findings, the government recommended the immediate elimination of NEET.
- The panel found that NEET favours only the rich and the elite sections, the government said. It has hit the students from both urban and rural areas particularly those whose families earn less than Rs2.5 lakh a year and who studied in Tamil-medium schools.
- If NEET continues, the healthcare system in the state will be badly affected as there will not be enough doctors at Primary Health Centres, the panel said.
- A study of medical admissions four years before and after NEET shows nearly a 10-time dip in state board students passing, from 380 to just around 40, sources told NDTV. There, however, is an exponential rise in CBSE students who passed, from three to over 200. A large majority of them had taken private tuition.
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