As the controversy over this year’s NEET (National Eligibility Entrance Test ) scores rages, aspirants who prepared for the test at Kota, India’s test-prep hub, are worried about gaining admission to government colleges, which offer affordable, high-quality education, despite receiving what would have counted as a good score in previous years because everyone seems to have done so much better this time.
Nearly 20,000 students who appeared for the test this year, and some test-prep institutions filed a petition in the Supreme Court seeking a probe in the alleged irregularities in the exam and the administration of a retest. Many of these petitioners spoke to HT on Wednesday and said they might need to take another attempt next year despite scoring well this time or abandon their dreams to pursue medical courses as their families cannot afford private college fees.
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“The future of students like me who hail from a middle-class family are finished. We have been preparing for a long time. The cut-off was only 605 last year but around 65,000 students scored more than that this year. And 67 students also secured the top rank . With NTA providing grace marks to 1,500 students, such results seem impossible. There should be a thorough investigation to the matter,” said Ayush Garg (23) who took his fourth NEET attempt and scored 646.
The National Testing Agency which conducted the test said grace marks were provided to the students who received the papers late in a few centres across the country.
Garg, whose father runs a small business in Kota said, “I have lost hope that I will get admission in a good government college. My father will not be able to afford the fees in a private college. If I has received these marks last year, I might have got into one of the top colleges in the country.”
To be sure, there is a paradox in his quandary: did NTA’s focus on setting an easy paper, being liberal with scoring, and the provision of grace marks benefit just a few students or did it raise everyone’s scores?
Scores this year would suggest the latter.
Echoing Garg’s comment, another petitioner, Stuti Saxena (21), who took her third attempt and scored 643 blamed NTA . “It’s not possible that seven students secure the top rank from only one centre. The grace marks system to compensate for time loss is highly unfair.”
Saxena’s father works in a private company in Maharashtra. “I know that he will not be able to afford my studies in a private college and therefore I have started to preparing for the next attempt. I hope the government identifies the centres where the irregularities took place through a proper judicial committee and conducts a retest there. It will save many of our futures.”
Another student Hardika Jain (20) also demanded a re-examination. “The government is playing with out future. It is our right to know what went wrong in our exam this time. Only an official committee which is free of any NTA member can figure this out.”
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But there are also some students who are hoping that their score will get them admission somewhere.
“I have scored 652 and had expected a rank between 8,000 to 9,000. But I have finished at 27,000 in the final rank. I am ready to take any college where I get a chance,” said Devans Raj Shrivastava (19), whose father is an employee in a Jodhpur-based real estate company.
There have been some reports of the paper being leaked. 13 people in Bihar’s Patna were arrested on May 5for allegedly receiving the NEET question paper on WhatsApp before the exam in exchange for about ₹3,000,000, said officials.
The high scores and allegations of the paper being leaked, and the disclosure by NTA about grace marks have prompted a slew of public interest litigations (PIL), including one by around 20,000 NEET students from Kota in the SC on Monday.
Alleging a gross irregularities in the NEET-2024 examination, they stated: “NTA used an arbitrary, hasty, whimsical, and opaque methodology in declaring the NEET results 2024 on June 4.”
The PIL has also alleged that the grace marks policy which was introduced for the first time was taken place without any prior information or notice to the students and therefore the court should declare it “illegal”.
“It (NTA) has falsely claimed that the loss of time for students has been calculated by the use of CCTV over the monitoring 4750 examination centres and each centre having multiple classrooms. The awarding of grace marks has been totally contrary to the principles of the ethical and fair marking system,” the PIL stated.
The Supreme Court on Tuesday sought answers from the NTA and the Centre over the controversy, observing that the “sanctity of the examination” has been affected by the allegations of paper leak and irregularities.
Issuing notice on a petition filed by 10 NEET-UG candidates demanding stay of the results and holding of fresh examination, a vacation bench headed by justice Vikram Nath declined to halt the ongoing counselling process and kept the matter for hearing on July 8 along with a pending petition over alleged discrepancies in the test.
Officials at test prep institutes have also called for better regulation of the NEET exam and an increase in the number of seats in government medical colleges.
The Director of the Motion Institute, Nitin Vijay, who is one of the petitioners, said, “Since the syllabus and exam pattern have been made simpler, more people got higher ranks. However, seven students from the same centre topping the charts and over 65,000 students getting more than 600 marks is quite impossible. Only 20,000 students who scored more than 600 last year. How could so many children be intelligent out of a sudden? The examination should be investigated.”
The CEO of the Allen coaching institute Nitin Kukreja seconded that demand: “NTA should ensure a fairness and justice for every student impacted by anomalies and opacity in the process. ”
He suggested a new policy framework for the NEET examinations in the future. “The demand of pursuing medical courses is higher than the intake. It’s high time we consider two-phase in NEET as well just like in the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) for engineering. It will ensure more screening and make the process fairer. The government must also increase the intake in government medical colleges considering the high demand.”
