A Painful Waiting Game Indeed - NEET Aspirants and Anxious Parents
India is too complex a nation that the simplistic solution of ‘One Nation, One XXX’ cannot apply uniformly across. There is diversity at every nook and corner of the massive land and its people. We can draw a political map and can coin slogans like ‘One Nation, One Election’, ‘One Nation, One Vehicle Registration’, ‘One Nation, One Syllabus’ et al. But the fact is that aspirationally and administratively, acceptance and strengthening of federalism can only help us to improve governance and citizen service delivery. ‘Think global, act local’ is ideally what can lead us forward.
The more the Centre talks about centralization, the more will be resistance and animosity to the concept of unified controls from the regional stakeholders including state bureaucracy and political satraps.
The hurdles to effectively implement federal testing and evaluation services are many. Firstly, the logistics and infrastructural inadequacies make any centralised approach slippery and vulnerable. NEET is a clear example. We ventured into the massive rollout of national testing without repeatedly ascertaining the robustness of our IT infrastructure, communication network and more than anything cyber security resilience.
Secondly, a unified system of testing and assessment of eligibility for graduate and postgraduate admissions in India is a very sensitive matter. All along we are used to the prevalence of nepotism, capitation fees, backroom fixing and sectarian intrusions into higher education administration.
Moneybags and politicians have over the past decades since independence developed a close nexus and a cozy mutuality of interests and protections. The vested interest would see a smooth and credible, ‘hands-free’ assessment and evaluation system as a grave existential threat, and many would be working behind the scenes to ensure that the attempt fails.
There is no wonder that Bihar has possibly emerged as the nerve centre of NEET-tampering. Just look back at the electoral malpractices that used to thrive in Bihar in the pre-voting machine era. Copying and exam-related malpractice are still considered as ‘normal’ in much of the Hindi heartland.
There are murmurs from even the so-called ‘developed’ Southern states on NEET because the local politicians see it intruding into their hold over university and professional course admissions. The very foundation of Tamil Nadu politics being drummed up regional ‘victim-card’ syndrome, it is natural that many in the state saw NEET as a threat to ‘dravidiansim’ (?).
The truth is that we as a nation have probably not reached the emotional, ethical or technical maturity to roll out and run NEET-like pan-India exams successfully and on a massive scale.
The closest comparison we have is of CAT for IIM selections, JEE for IIT admissions and the UPSC exams. But the scope, breadth and intensity of NEET are way more than these exams, which have evolved over the years to a safe and mature level.
As a solution to wriggle out of the current stalemate, let the States manage all undergraduate admission tests and evaluations and central testing and assessment should be limited to post-graduate programs and central institutions like IITs, NITs, IIMs, AIIMS etc. The stringent punitive provision now notified for exam-related malpractices can hopefully deter any mischief-mongers.
India as a nation needs functional and reliable systems and processes. It is not important to make everything into a colossal, pan-national process across the terrains from Kanyakumari to Kashmir. Let us learn to make the States competent, competitive, confident and resilient.
The sum-of-parts synergy is the real strength of India. Let a modified format for NEET empower and delegate to the States the responsibility for test administration. A strong regulatory and oversight mechanism at the federal level should be in place, to work together with the states to improve the systems and the service delivery to citizens.
Comments