00:00Exam Mafia in India is a reality.
00:05Every exam in India is conducted under the shadow of the fear that something will go
00:12wrong, someone will leak the paper and it is big business.
00:16On May 5th, over 24 lakh students took the NEET exam at 4,750 centres in 571 cities,
00:26including 14 international locations, but June 4 results caused an uproar, over 1,500
00:33students received grace marks, 67 scored perfect 720s and there were allegations of a leaked
00:39question paper.
00:40We spoke to students, an expert, a doctor and a parent to understand the fallout of
00:46this NEET exam controversy.
00:48And it is an absolute tragedy, in my mind these competitive exams are for a large part
00:53of India, passport to social mobility.
00:58So if someone is in Bangkoda, we have had a topper from Bangkoda in West Bengal or someone
01:03is from a place like Hinguli or Amravati, the only way you will get out of the place
01:08in which you were born in and go to a better place are these competitive exams, if those
01:12people are going to give up, those people when they crack an exam like NEET also become
01:18local inspiration.
01:19I will give you my example, I come from a lower middle class family in Jaipur, I got
01:23selected in IIT Delhi in 1997, everyone who came after me tried to get into IIT and lot
01:29of them got into IIT in our direct family and extended family.
01:34That thing is getting hurt with all this that is going on right now and it has been very
01:38very poorly addressed by the education ministry in India till now.
01:42Because of the paper leak, our entire centres used to get cancelled, NEETs were not even
01:47held again.
01:48So, it used to happen at that time also, because of the paper leak system and all, there was
01:55a lot of career in that also, but at that time there was no social media, now social media
02:00is there, but it was not there.
02:02So, it was not there.
02:03So, it was not there.
02:04So, it was not there.
02:05So, it was not there.
02:06So, it was not there.
02:07So, it was not there.
02:08So, it was not there.
02:09So, it was not there.
02:10So, it was not there.
02:11So, it was not there.
02:12So, it was not there.
02:13So, it was not there.
02:14So, it was not there.
02:15So, it was not there.
02:17So, now the social media is the touchstone of our society to this day.
02:21So, at that time, there were no social media, there were no whatsapps, and we didn't have
02:25so many resources that we were able to record all sorts of corruption somewhere.
02:29So, I think today's children are getting a lot of benefit because the rioting happened.
02:32During our time, we didn't get the benefit because what happened has happened.
02:36The NTA admitted a technical glitch after the Supreme Court's intervention reversing
02:41grace marks for over 1500 students and offering retests.
02:46In 2018, the cut-off was 540 marks, NTA started conducting exams in 2019, the cut-off shot
02:53up to 583 and it has been going up every year steadily.
02:58This year it went up from 610 to 655.
03:01My marks are 670 and my rank is 61K, which was around 22-23 lakhs, sorry thousands.
03:12My coaching started last year in May, just after the need of 23.
03:17In the need of 23, I scored 450 approx and I was expecting that this mark will go up
03:25to 600K plus because it was the same cut-off last year.
03:28This was my second attempt after the first drop.
03:31This time my score is 641.
03:33Last year, my rank was between 6000-7000.
03:39So, expecting this year's cut-off, I was expecting 9000-10,000, maximum 11,000.
03:45A lot of students were assured, at least in their mind, that based on past year trends,
03:50I am going to get a government college.
03:53They are not going to get it and there is an extreme angst about this fact.
03:57Now, this angst is necessarily not on the quality of paper and the paper was very easy
04:03and because of which the cut-off has shot up.
04:07It is because people believe that something wrong has happened.
04:11Something has happened with respect to probably paper leaks.
04:15There have been arrests that have been made in Patna.
04:19It has been established that people had paper.
04:21When they were arrested, they tried to burn it.
04:23All of that is documented.
04:26In your time, it's been long back, when you started your journey and you cracked Janket's exam.
04:33How was it then and what is different that you are seeing now?
04:36You see, the time I was preparing for medical, there were different bodies, like different
04:44states used to conduct their own exams.
04:47Then there were all India-based competitive exam, especially for medical, CVC used to conduct.
04:54And besides that, central universities used to conduct like BHU, IMS, BHU, All National
04:58Governmental Sciences, even AMU.
05:00So there were many exams.
05:01We had to appear for 3-4 exams to crack into maybe 1, 2 or 3.
05:07So we had to appear into different exams.
05:09Now it has become a central exam sort of thing.
05:12So there is one exam and students do appear into that.
05:17And one exam has its merits, its demerits as well.
05:22If one exam, you, due to some reason, emotional reason, due to whatever, center had some issue,
05:29you know, a question came late, there was some wrong distribution of the paper in the
05:34language, say Hindi-English.
05:36So if one examination goes wrong, your career is ruined.
05:41In medical profession, there is no any place for, you know, single year lapse.
05:46People do take chances because, you know, we do have a scarcity in our career opportunities.
05:53So we are, you know, our kids, they look for drops, they look for second year preparation.
05:59But it itself is such a huge journey that you keep on adding, you know, another year
06:04to that journey whenever there is some fallacy.
06:09So I like to say that even single examination for, you know, every institution, that also
06:15has some problem, which has come up this time.
06:18I get a call from my cousin and they said that the result has come, check it.
06:23When I checked the result, my rank was around 54,000.
06:28And I was, I never expected that I could have such a high rank.
06:33I thought maximum to maximum that if I get the last rank, I will get 21, 22, 23,000.
06:41But it was 54,000, which was not expected for me at all.
06:45So I lost my government seat.
06:48And after that, I can't afford any private seat.
06:52So I am thinking of taking a drop again.
06:55But I keep thinking in my mind that if it happens again like this year, then my one year will be wasted.
07:05NTA gave a notification, issued a notification in December that NCRT books,
07:10which NCRT books are to be followed.
07:12And there were some confusions, if you can tell us about that.
07:14So what has happened is, understand this problem, NTA is a national exam, right?
07:19But the book from which the generally the exam has come is NCRT book.
07:25Now, NCRT book is not universally followed across all the boards in India, right?
07:31So what happens is NTA doesn't mention in its information bulletin that the exam is
07:35going to be from NCRT book, because as soon as they do it, you know how much fuss every
07:39time happens around NEET and Tamil Nadu.
07:42They will say, we have students who are studying in Tamil board, you are trying to impose your
07:48one nation, whatever world on us, right?
07:51So as a result, what happens is, before they will announce the syllabus, there is consultation
07:59which goes on across all the boards, right?
08:03And then they come up with, okay, this is going to be the syllabus.
08:05So the amazing thing that happened was, they reduce certain chapters.
08:10So initially there were 96 chapters, now it is 79 in the new book.
08:14So 17 chapters were done away with, right?
08:17But then when the consultation happened, they added some chapters which were not even there
08:22in the new book, but some of the boards insisted that this is critical in our mind to academic
08:28excellence of the students, you can't remove them.
08:30So for example, P block elements were added, for example cockroach was added, for example
08:35tissues were added.
08:36So old book 96 chapters, new book 79 chapters, then you add more and they took a lot of time.
08:45It's an absolute tragedy if a preparation is for two years and if you are going to tell
08:50the new syllabus four months before the exam, you wasted precious time of a student.
09:06If you are very good, you go into a government college, fees is going to be limited.
09:34If your parents can afford, you go to a good private college.
09:39If you are neither, you are not very good and you can't afford, then you go to a Ukraine,
09:43Russia and Kyrgyzstan.
09:45So that is a via media and then you try and come back by giving FMGA exam or hopefully
09:49whenever next exam is going to come.
09:52This is the basic reason.
09:54Now on top of it what happens is, in a government college, because you are associated with a
09:59government hospital where you get free treatment, the patient inflow is very very high, which
10:05means even if you are very junior, when you are doing MVVS, you literally know very very
10:11limited things in terms of application.
10:14Would you be able to give injection to someone?
10:17It's anyone's guess.
10:18People are learning, right?
10:19But because the rush is so much, you get to touch the patient, you get to practice stuff.
10:24In private medical colleges, by the nature of it, because they are expensive, they don't
10:28get to do it.
10:29We have got to know that it was Supreme Court's verdict in 2018 regarding CLAT, that there
10:35has to be some grace marks given whenever the time is lost.
10:39But do you think for a noble profession, medical, where the merit is everything, then to give
10:45this grace mark certainly undermine the nobility of the profession?
10:50It does, but you know what, in my mind, it still doesn't explain the issue of the cut-off
10:56jump from 610 to 635, because we are talking about only 1563 students, right?
11:03This whole grace mark thing was done in a very very shoddy manner.
11:07You are right, they applied the conclusion of CLAT into NEET, CLAT is a very very homogenous
11:13paper, NEET has distinct physics, chemistry and biology, generally students are very comfortable
11:18with biology, they are very uncomfortable with physics.
11:22If you go by the fact that okay, I reached till a point of time, which means he would
11:26have largely done biology, chemistry and some physics, when you apply that rule, the
11:30numbers are going to be significantly higher because you tend to leave the most difficult
11:34part for the end and then you miss that part.
11:38So the grace mark does not take care of that aspect.
11:42But people are angry not because of that, people are angry because this was not mentioned
11:48in the information bulletin that this would be a mechanism for grace marks, in case students
11:53are not given the requisite 200 minutes, which is available for every aspirant.
11:58And then when students found out that something like this has happened, it was first reported
12:04by Times of India correspondent and then NTA came out and said, yes guys, by the way we
12:09did this.
12:10That's not done, for an exam like this, which in general is in very very strong spotlight,
12:18you don't do this and they have done it and now they're trying to say, oh, you know what,
12:23we are going to probably look at our own committee's recommendation by another committee.
12:29But I do not believe that 1563 students changes the narrative of the agitation.
12:36Paramedics has been included this time in this NEET examination.
12:41Do you think it is somewhere rather right or how do you read it?
12:45You see, if you talk of logistic issues, so one examination is good, because if any
12:55examination being done at the level of 12, say PCB or maybe PCM for engineering purposes,
13:02so logistic wise that is okay.
13:04You need someone to qualify some examination and based on that merit, you do have a ranking
13:09system, you make a merit list and accordingly you restitute.
13:13So it is okay, but the candidates who are appearing, they feel a pressure that 24.5
13:22lakhs have appeared in the exam.
13:24So the students have increased.
13:27So that gives sort of insecurity or some pressure into their mind.
13:32Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said the error occurred in only 6 centres out of
13:384500, but in a high-stakes exam, every mark counts.
13:43Notably, 6 top scorers were from the same centre in Haryana.
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