The not-so-NEET irony

Many moves are made with good intentions, but the outcomes, ironically, turn the opposite. Which happened with the NEET exams—intended to provide a foolproof, level playing field and ease of competing for medical profession aspirants across the country. But, a systematic manipulation by a few anti-social elements has turned what was purported to be a foolproof system into one leaky hole of corruption and extortion. The NEET incident is a case in point-life has thrown up many such ironies and anomalies

After the sinking of the Titanic, a law was passed in America requiring ships to carry more lifeboats, as one of the reasons that so many passengers had perished in the Titanic tragedy was the lack of enough lifeboats. Some warned that the new design of the cruise ships would make the boats top heavy and unstable. Still, the law went through as planned. Now, there was this one ship in the dock in Chicago called the SS Eastland, a massive cruise ship designed to tour the Great Lakes. People were warned that the adding of extra lifeboats would make the already dangerously overloaded ship topple over. No one listened and so when the ship made its first trip, it sank even before it managed to leave the port. A total of 844 passengers met their death when the SS Eastland sank. And, it sank due to what must have been the best of intentions, to prevent another Titanic happening.

The present news regarding the NEET question-paper leak, where the fate of about 24 lakh students is involved is on a similar line as that of SS Eastland, in the context of the Titanic. The intention was all very good to help students but the end result was torture to the students instead.

NEET, along with 16 other prestigious examinations are conducted by the National Testing Agency (NTA), which was formed in 2017 under the Ministry of Education, Government of India, as an autonomous organisation. Some of the examinations under NTA, besides NEET are-JEE-Main, NEET-UG, CMAT, CUET, GPAT, DUET, JNU entrance exam, etc. NTA conducts the examinations to assess the candidates’ competency for admission to premiere higher education institutions. This means that right from test preparation to test delivery and test marking, NTA is involved and also addresses issues concerning the exam it is entrusted with.

Earlier, students had to apply to many colleges and travel to distant parts of the country to take the entrance examinations. This caused harassment to students and also put them to financial difficulties, while trying to get admission to colleges of their choice. The credibility of the entrance exams and the admission process of some of these private colleges and universities also used to be suspect, as capitation fees were in demand. The intention behind the formation of NTA was to reduce these difficulties of students while chasing admissions. The objectives of the NTA were to conduct transparent, efficient and international standard tests to assess students’ competency for admissions.

It looks like it became too heavy for NTA to conduct so many examinations with centres all over the country, catering to the huge population of students. The situation became somewhat akin to that of SS Eastland. The loopholes of the existing examination systems were taken up so as to plug them, but the NTA was not organically born, and had to depend on too many private players, such as for logistic support and hiring of exam centres. It was different from the time-tested and self-contained UPSC, where failures have never been noticed. Despite the best intentions of the NTA, the chinks in the examination delivery process have opened up, and now it is in the news for all the wrong reasons. Students are on the road, and the new government is facing the flak.

Enquiries so far have revealed that some notorious gangs, comprising of even doctors and engineers, were involved in the paper leaks. Question papers were cleverly stolen so that the sealed envelopes looked intact at first glance. Students interested in the leaked question papers were identified and collected at safe points and made to memorise the answers as given by the accomplice scholars. All this happened for a fee of Rs 30 to 40 lakhs per student. At some centres, there was another modus operandi. Students were asked to leave the answer sheets blank wherever they did not know the answers, and in the margin period of 30 minutes before the answer sheets had to be bundled into the sealed covers, the blank spots in the answer sheets were filled by experts. Added to these, there was another problem which was discovered after the examination. Grace marks were given to 1,563 students from six centres. The case of NTA was that due to logistical problems, there was a delay in conducting examinations at these six centres, and hence grace marks were awarded to students from these centres. The Supreme Court was approached by some students and as a result the award of grace marks was quashed. Retest was offered to these students with an option to appear or choose the original marks without the grace marks. The retest has already happened and only 918 students took the retest.

Now, fire-fighting is in progress on a large scale. First, the culprits involved in leaking the questions and people involved in the racket are being identified. Second, a high powered committee has been formed to study the system and suggest corrections. The CBI has been entrusted with the job of making enquiries. Also, a stringent law, The Public Examinations (Prevention of Unfair Means) Act, 2024 has been implemented with effect from June 21. This law has a provision for imprisonment up to 10 years and a fine up to `1 crore. One of the largest examination systems in the country has shown problems and efforts are on to weed them out and punish the culprits.

"The NTA was not organically born, and had to depend on too many private players, such as for logistic support and hiring of exam centres. It was different from the timetested and self-contained UPSC, where failures have never been noticed"

The NEET exams are just an illustration of an “irony”, but the fact remains that ironies are part of our life, which we face very often. Life is full of ironies and paradoxes. One big irony that the world is facing today is the issue of development and modernisation, intended at giving a good life to the people, but what we also get are natural calamities caused by loss of forest, water and global warming as a byproduct of development. Today, deserts are getting floods and cold countries are being hit by high temperatures. The climatic life cycle is getting affected and the world is witnessing natural devastation. Development and urbanisation at a very rapid scale hurts mother earth, and so on the one hand we see the benefits and on the other we encounter unforeseen problems. As Phil Harding, a British field archaeologist said, “21st Century choice: Look after our planet and it will look after us, or don’t and face the consequences.”

Another ‘irony’ which we see is born from our Constitution. When India became independent, efforts were made to create an ideal Constitution, which can help the country grow on all fronts - social, economic and political. For social upliftment, our Constitution provided reservation in jobs and in educational institutions for scheduled castes and scheduled tribes. This provision initially was for the first 10 years from the implementation of the Constitution but it is now apparently a settled provision for perpetuity. This reservation is 7.5 % for ST and 15% for SC. The reservation ambit was further widened in August 1990 by 27 % for other backward castes (OBC). The matter travelled to the Supreme Court and it was held that reservation was a valid policy but it should not increase beyond 50 %. Now, a further reservation of 10% has been provided for the economically weaker sections, and this increase has not been held invalid by the Supreme Court. Thus, all together, there is a reservation of almost 60%.

This exercise by our Constitution and later by our law-makers is laudable since they are for the benefit of the downtrodden and the poor. But the irony is that the laudable provision has now resulted in social conflict. We most often see demonstrations and sometimes even riots seeking reservation for those castes which are not in the reservation net. People from some dominant castes also want reservation, as they claim to be backward (OBC). And existing reserved caste people also want more reservation, as their proportion in the total population of the country is higher than visualised by the Mandal Commission Report, which brought reservation for the OBCs.

Sociology speaks of the principle of ‘Sanskritisation’, where efforts are made by people from the lower castes to be equated with the upper castes. But what we see today is ‘reverse - Sanskritisation’. Upper caste people are fighting to be considered OBC. The objective behind this reverse activity is to reap the benefits derived from reservation. The irony is that the intended good provision of law is now bringing disquiet. It is sad to say that India is probably the only country in the world where people fight to be considered backward. Is that not ironical?

In simple terms, irony occurs in life whenever a person says something or does something that departs from what they (or we) expect them to say or do. There are many different kinds of irony, but the simplest is the difference in the intended outcome and the actual outcome. The common expression of ‘the slip between the cup and the lip’, is, in other words, an expression of irony.