Medical college entrance exam scandal grows in India
Four more students were arrested yesterday, while the Supreme Court said it will order a retest depending on whether the leak was localised or systemic. The agency that drafts the exam will have to post online information that has not yet been made public. Medicine, like engineering, is a highly sought-after profession among young Indians; this year, 110,000 places were available for 2.4 million candidates.
New Delhi (AsiaNews) – In recent weeks, several people have been arrested in connection with cheating at the National Eligibility Entrance Test or NEET, the national test for admission to Indian medical schools.
This situation echoes the current crisis at Bangladesh universities. Although the context is different, protesters have been calling for an end to existing quotas in public sector employment.
Yesterday, the Central Bureau of Investigation arrested four university students from the All India Institute of Medical Science in Patna, Bihar, accused of helping Pankaj Singh, one of the candidates who allegedly cheated.
Singh is accused of stealing the question paper from a trunk that belonged to the National Testing Agency (NTA), which prepares and administers the exams, in Hazaribagh, Jharkhand.
Another 30 people linked to the two centres in Patna and Hazaribagh have been taken into custody, while the Supreme Court has made it known that a new exam can only be carried out if large-scale violations can be proven.
The exam was held on 5 May and the results were announced on 4 June. But it quickly became apparent that something had gone wrong: 67 students had obtained the maximum score, an unprecedented situation.
Since 2016, the year when the NEET was introduced for medical students, at most one to three students would get a perfect score of 720 points per year.
Scores between 650 and 680, which usually guarantee access to medical school, also saw a marked increased compared to the past. While (not surprisingly), scores between 610 and 640 did not increase.
Faculties such as medicine and engineering are very popular among Indian students because, in a country where youth unemployment tops 9 per cent (and rising), they guarantee a secure and stable salary.
This year alone, 2.4 million candidates took the medical entrance test in 4,750 centres in 571 cities (in India and abroad) for 110,000 places available, 55,000 to 60,000 in public universities and half reserved for students with a disadvantaged economic and social background.
Tuition is much cheaper in public universities, where a five-year programme can cost 500,000 to 1 million rupees (about US$ 6,000-12,000), a figure that can rise tenfold in private colleges.
The petitions sent in last month to the Supreme Court are divided between those who ask to retake the test, those who do not want the results to be cancelled, and those who want the exam to be abolished once and for all.
“The fact that there was a leak at Patna and Hazaribagh is admitted. The question papers had been disseminated there. We want to ensure whether this was confined to those centres or widespread,” the Supreme Court said, ordering the National Testing Agency (NTA) to publish the results of all candidates on its website by tomorrow, without revealing the identity of the students, but adding the city and the centre where they took the exam.
So far, the government has ruled out repeating the exam, supporting the version that the irregularities were localised.
Several commentators underscored issues associated with the NTA, a body created in 2017 whose status, public or private, is still unclear, and which, in any case, has failed to meet minimum transparency standards.
The NTA, for example, unlike other autonomous bodies that depend on the central government, has not posted on its website any official document explaining its objectives and organisational structure.
Information on personnel and how questions are prepared are not available, while information on budgeting and financial resource management is limited.
Despite these shortcomings, it has taken on more and more tasks, some, such as the medical entrance exam, is huge in a country of almost one and a half billion people.
“Such a mammoth exercise is taking place without proper government control,” said Sasikanth Senthil, a Lok Sabha member for Tamil Nadu and a former official with the Indian Administrative Service.
“There is no doubt that the agency has to be held accountable in the same way that other government bodies are, especially because it is dealing with such a critical purpose that affects lakhs[*] of students,” he added.
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[*] One lakh equals 100,000 in the Indian numbering system.
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