Why Tamil Nadu govt opposes the NEET exam, what the Rajan Committee said on its impact (2024)

The National Testing Agency (NTA, which conducts NEET-UG) and the Education Ministry have set up a committee to review the results of those who got grace marks. Congress leaders have asked for a probe supervised by the Supreme Court, and Maharashtra’s Medical Education Minister has asked for the results to be cancelled. Some candidates have moved High Courts.

What Stalin said

In a post on X (formerly Twitter), Stalin said: “After coming to power [in 2021], we constituted a High-Level Committee headed by Justice A K Rajan to study the impact of the NEET-based admission process. The Committee’s report, based on extensive data analysis and inputs from students, parents, and the public, has been published and shared with various State Governments to expose NEET’s anti-poor and anti-social justice nature.”

What Committee found

NEET is the all-India competitive examination held for admission to medical, dental, and AYUSH courses in government and private colleges across India. This year, almost 24 lakh candidates appeared for a little more than 1 lakh MBBS seats in 700-plus medical colleges.

The Rajan Committee found that after NEET was introduced in 2017-18, fewer students from rural areas, those studying in the Tamil medium, those from families with lower incomes, and those from Tamil Nadu state board schools, secured admission in medical colleges in the state.

* While English-medium students secured more seats even in the pre-NEET period, their share rose further post-NEET, while that of Tamil-medium students became smaller.

From 2010-11 to 2016-17, English-medium students got between 80.2% to 85.12% seats in medical colleges; Tamil-medium students got 19.79% seats in 2010-11, and just 14.88% in 2016-17.

In the four years from 2017-18 (when NEET was introduced), the share of Tamil-medium students in medical college seats ranged from 1.6% to 3.27%. And the share of English-medium students shot up from 85.12% in 2016-17 to 98.41% in 2017-18, and was 98.01% in 2020-21.

* In the pre-NEET period from 2010-11 to 2016-17, students from rural areas secured 61.5% seats on average in government medical colleges. In 2020-21, this figure had fallen to 49.91%. By contrast, the share of students from urban areas in government medical colleges rose from an average 38.55% in the pre-NEET years to 50.09% in 2020-21.

* The share of students from higher-income families increased in the post-NEET period, while that of students from poorer families decreased, the Rajan Committee found.

Students whose parents had an annual income of less than Rs 2.5 lakh secured an average 41% of admissions in the pre-NEET period; this figure fell to an average 36% in the post-NEET years. For students whose parents had an annual income of over Rs 2.5 lakh, these numbers were 58% and 62% on average in the pre-NEET and post-NEET periods respectively.

* Post NEET, CBSE students came to have an advantage over Tamil Nadu state board students, the Committee found.

The share of applicants from state board schools fell from around 95% on average in the pre-NEET years to 64.27% in 2020-21, while applicants from CBSE schools increased from an average 3.17% pre-NEET to 32.26% in 2020-21.

The share of CBSE students who secured admission to government medical colleges increased from 0.13% in 2010-11 to 26.83% in 2020-21, while state board students’ share fell from 71.73% to 43.13% during this period.

* The report said that “the argument that the NEET mark, as opposed to HSC (higher secondary certificate of the state board) mark tests the standard of the student and signifies merit is a baseless argument”. It noted that in the pre-NEET period, the average HSC score of students who were admitted to MBBS programmes was 98.16%, compared to 89.05% post-NEET.

* On the impact of coaching centres on admissions, the report said that 99% of students who secured admissions in 2019-20 received training before NEET.

Panel’s recommendations

Concluding that NEET has “undermined the diverse societal representation in MBBS and higher medical studies” and favoured affluent sections of society, the Committee asked the state to take immediate steps to eliminate NEET from the admission process.

It recommended that HSC scores, “normalised” to ensure equality across boards, should be used as the admission criteria. It also said that “socio-economic and other demographic adversities” that may result in poor performance in the higher secondary examination may be identified, and “re-profiling of scores” should be done using the framework of an “adversity score”.

Following the report

In his X post, Stalin wrote: “Based on the recommendations in the report, a Bill seeking exemption from NEET was unanimously passed by the Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly. It is now awaiting Presidential assent, after an inordinate delay from the Tamil Nadu Governor’s side.”

The Tamil Nadu Admission to Under Graduate Medical Degree Courses Bill was passed by the Assembly in 2021, returned by the Governor in 2022, and passed again by the Assembly the same year. It provides for admissions to undergraduate medical, dental and homeopathy courses on the basis of Class 12 marks.