Tamil Nadu Assembly Passes Bill To Exempt Medical Admissions From NEET

The Tamil Nadu State Legislative Assembly today passed a bill to which seeks to 'dispense' with the requirement to qualify National Entrance-cum-Eligibility Test (NEET) for getting admission to medical seats. Importantly, the Chief Minister, while introducing the bill in the assembly said that since admissions to medical education courses are traceable to entry 25 of List III, Schedule VII of the Constitution, therefore, the state government was competent to regulate the same. The Bill named 'The Tamil Nadu Admission to Undergraduate Medical Degree Courses Bill, 2021' further provides that admissions to UG courses in medicine, dentistry, Indian medicine and homeopathy would be made on the basis of marks obtained by a student in Class XII through the "normalization methods".Section 3 of the Bill says that notwithstanding anything contained in any other law or any rules, regulations, notifications or by-laws, admission in every Government Seat shall be made by the appropriate authority on the basis of marks obtained by the student in the relevant subjects in the qualifying examination. Also, Section 6 of the Bill provides that 7.5% Government Seats will be reserved for students from Government schools. This will be subject to the other rules of reservation.Government Seats mean all seats in MBBS, BDS, BSMS, BAMS, BUMS and BHMS Courses in Government Colleges, excluding seats reserved under "All India Quota" and 65% of such seats in non-minority educational institutions and 50% of such seats in minority educational institutions and the seats arrived at in accordance with the consensus between such institutions and the government. Earlier, the admissions in Tamil Nadu for medical and other related courses were based on class XII marks only, however, in the year 2017, NEET was made compulsory for the students across all states and education boards. The Bill further seeks to ensure social justice, uphold equality and equal opportunity, protect all vulnerable student communities from being discriminated and to bring them to the mainstream of medical and dental education, and in turn, to ensure robust public healthcare across Tamil Nadu, particularly the rural areas. The Statement of Objects and Reasons of the Bill avers thus: "The NEET does not seem to ensure merit or standard of the students being offered MBBS under its purview. The findings [of the Committee] indicate that the NEET has only enabled and empowered comparatively the low-performing (in NEET scores and HSc scores) students to get admission to MBBS. Therefore, the question of NEET ensuring quality and merit of the students is to be ruled out" Here, it is important to note that this particular conclusion has been arrived at by a committee appointed by the Tamil Nadu Government under the chairmanship of retired High Court judge A.K. Rajan, which has further observed that the NEET does not seem to ensure merit or standard of the students being offered MBBS under its purview. In its report submitted to the state government, the Committee had said that NEET had clearly undermined the diverse societal representation in MBBS and higher medical studies favoring mainly the affordable and affluent segment of the society, while equally thwarting the dreams of pursuing medical education by the underprivileged social groups. The report also stated that NEET is not fair or equitable method of admission since it favors the rich and elite sections of the society. The Committee had also concluded, as the bill notes, that if NEET is allowed to continue for a few more years, the healthcare system of Tamil Nadu will ne badly affected and that there may not be enough doctors for being posted at PHCs or Government Hospitals and that the rural and urban poor may not be able to join the medical courses. Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin introduced the Bill a day after a 19-year-old student from Salem district, who was supposed to sit for the exam, died allegedly by suicide, The Hindu reported.

Tamil Nadu Assembly Passes Bill To Exempt Medical Admissions From NEET

Sparsh Upadhyay

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