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A Brief Introduction into the world of Neet
One of the most high-stakes exams in India for prospective doctors is NEET (National Eligibility cum Entrance Test). This particular test is held every year, and it is the only entrance examination for undergraduate medical programs or MBBS offered by all medical colleges in the country. In order to be admitted to study medicine – a career that many students dream about – one must perform excellently in this tough multiple-choice exam. The competition in NEET exams is 25+ with a mere 1 lack seats for mbbs in our country.These makes the competition extremely cut throat for those seats in our country.
A brief history about the introduction of neet
Pre medical exams have been around since long but the introduction of NEET unified and created a single entrance exam for entry into pre medical college
Pre-2013: The different states and some notable medical colleges organized their own separate entrance tests. This was a complicated system for students.
In 2012, the idea of NEET came up to unify these exams under one national test.
In 2013, NEET was first announced as it replaced All India Pre-Medical Test (AIPMT) conducted by CBSE. Nonetheless, legal battles made NEET to be stopped for some time.
From 2014-2015: Due to legal problems, NEET was suspended while AIPMT took place. NEET was eventually reintroduced in 2016 through CBSE.
After this period NTA has been taking care of NEET since 2019 till date. Thus, from 2012, NEET took long before being fully implemented due to its’ legal intricacies. Today it remains as the only undergraduate medical course entrance exam in India.
Cut off required for locking a pre-medical seat:
The neet exam has around 2.5 Million candidates with a mere 100 thousand seats for admission.These creates a cut-throat competition and it also creates a requirement of high score of atleast 630 out of 720 marks in the exam.The cutoff for a candidate further depends on quota and state of domicile of a student.There has been a cutoff rise of about 50-60 marks for admission in medical colleges due to a major rank-marks inflation in 2024
Medical colleges and seats in INDIA
India has a population of around 1.4 Billion and there are approximately 108,915 seats in around 706 colleges in our nation. The medical seats account for roughly 0.0007 percent of the population.There has been a major scarcity of medical seats in our country.Out of the 108,915 seats approximately 55,000.seats are in goverment medical colleges and other seats are present in private medical colleges which have extremely high fee structure unaffordable for the middle class students.
CONTROVERSY SURROUNDING NEET 2024:
The controversy surrounding the NEET 2024 exam :
Question paper leak: There has been speculations of Question paper leak. On May 5th 2024,the Neet exam day question paper was released on Instagram in certain which sparked the rumours of neet paper leak.There was a FIR on alleged paper leak in Patna and the extreme rank-marks allegations further seems to put some light on the paper leak allegations.
Giving of Grace Marks: Some students who lost time during the examination were awarded grace marks by NTA. There were doubts, however, regarding whether this method was fair or not, with some arguing that it led to “inflated marks” for a select few hence creating an inequality among test takers.
Consequently, Public Outrage: Students, parents and political parties rallied against alleged malpractice
Accusations against NTA: The National Testing Agency received condemnation and its Director General was sacked
Supreme Court Intervention: Legal suits were lodged in relation to awarding of grace marks and the conduct of exams by Supreme Court of Law
Delayed Counselling: Medical seat allotment counselling which is normally done after results has been indefinitely postponed. Till date, July 6th, 2024; things are still going on. In addition to maintaining that the examinations are valid, NTA is subject to investigations by Supreme Court and High Level Committee into matters relating inconsistencies in their administration.
Reservation Applied in Neet (Ug)
NEET 2024 has no direct advantages in terms of scholarships or fee waivers. However, some categories are given reservation benefits to secure MBBS/BDS seats in government medical colleges. Here is a breakdown:
Categories:
General Category (GEN): The general class with the most competition; it does not have any reservation benefits.
Scheduled Castes (SC): With 15% reservations, SC candidates have an exclusive share of Government MBBS/BDS seats.
Scheduled Tribes (ST): ST candidates have been apportioned 7.5% for the Government MBBS/BDS seats in Government Colleges.
Other Backward Classes (OBC): OBC category is followed by further sub-categorizations as per Central List and State Specific Lists and this accounts for 27% of all the government college MBBS / BDS seats.
Economically Weaker Sections (EWS): EWS category under GEN has a limit on family income where only those applicants whose family income is less than this limit will be eligible for reservation i.e.,10%.
Benefits:
A much higher likelihood of getting into a government medical school compared with the general class is what underlies these categories. NEET reserve categories have fewer aspirants which make them less competitive in relation to each other.
Counselling dates :
The All India neet counselling was scheduled to begin from 6th July 2024. Alleged paper leak scandals and controversy of grace marks led to a supreme court decision to defer the neet counselling until further notice. The next hearing of Supreme court on these issue led by CJI Chandrachud will be held on 8th July and any decision on these issue is expected to be taken on that day.