Chennai: After attending the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) meeting in New Delhi, the political arm of the powerful Vanniyar community, Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK) on Wednesday lashed out against the National Eligibility Cum Entrance Test (NEET).
PMK state president and former Union Minister Anbumani Ramadoss said that NEET had commercialised medical education.
The senior leader urged the Government of India to cancel NEET examinations.
He said that the data released by the Tamil Nadu government has proved that NEET has succeeded in making medical education unreachable for poor students and that it has commercilised medical education.
He said that the intention of NEET has been defeated.
The former Union health minister who is also a trained medical doctor said that out of the 28,849 students who are eligible for participating in medical admission counselling from Tamil Nadu only 31 per cent had cleared the NEET in the first attempt.
He also said that of the 2993 students who participate in medical admission counselling under the 7.5 per cent government school reservation ,only 21 percent have cleared the exam in the first attempt.
The PMK state president said that Competitive exams should provide equal opportunity to all, but added that NEET was not providing equal opportunity to students.
“How can a poor student, who does not have means to get NEET coaching once, can get coaching several times,” the former Union minister asked.
He said that government students who had received coaching had cleared NEET. However, he said that NEET had created inequality among the government school students also.
He said that if the central government was bent on safeguarding social justice and increase the quality of medical education, it should make an announcement to cancel NEET.
–IANS