Sudden implementation of NEET: Is it as bad as the victims project?

Suppose there is a 100-meter race. All participants are ready and have prepared for 4 years for this one day. The organizers want to change the rules of the race in such a manner that it adds to the excitement of the viewers and still the sanctity of the competition is not taken away. After much brainstorming the organizers thought of ideas like:

  1. Increasing the distance from 100-meter to 125-meter race.
  2. Putting equal weights of a few kgs on the participant’s ankles
  3. Conducting the race on an incline – rather than a flat surface

The excitement would be when the announcement is done at the last moment when the race is about to start. So participants don’t have time to prepare and all have equal chances of winning. In theory the outcome will be there will be survival of the fittest. A person who has more stamina will win if first option is chosen. The strongest person will win the second option and participants who have practiced running on an incline or have strong front calf and thigh muscles will win in case of 3 option. The condition is that none of the participants should know the rules of the game – before it was public.

Similar thing has happened with the announcement of NEET exam for medical students. One fine day the Supreme Court decided that the rules of admission in medical colleges have changed. The parents, students and all stakeholders started protesting. However what they forget is that everyone will be equally be affected. Thereby bringing down the admission cut-off for the colleges. Suppose a particular college would have a cutoff of 88% in GujCET last year. This year in NEET the cutoff can be 80%. If all students didn’t know about NEET then everyone will be equally get affected. Hence the problem is not as big as it is projected.

The only agreement is that CBSE students will get undue advantage because NEET is designed on NCERT curriculum. However this is a very weak argument if we go by the numbers. The number of CBSE students in Gujarat are hardly 5% of the total passouts in standard 12th science biology stream. This is because of the fact that historically students who wanted to become doctors would take up Gujarat Board for improving their chances of Admission. Moreover anyways AIPMT (same test which is not named as NEET) was considered as entrance test for about 15% of seats in medical colleges.

To summarize, the sudden changing of admission test is a problem, but not as big as it is portrayed to be. If all of the students are affected equally then there should not be any cause of worry. In a competitive exam you have to better than the last person getting admission in your preferred colleges – hence everything is relative and not absolute.