NEW DELHI: India’s top examinations for admissions into research programmes and medical schools have come under unprecedented scrutiny amid mounting solid evidence of corruption and paper leaks, leaving the future of over three million students hanging in the balance.
The National Testing Agency (NTA), an autonomous body under India’s Ministry of Education that is responsible for conducting the nationwide examinations, is at the centre of these controversies over the integrity of the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET), a national examination for medical aspirants held May.
The exam results on June 4 showed irregularities in marks and a dramatically high number of toppers, with a wave of arrests in different parts of India for alleged paper leaks and multimillion-dollar scams.
Since then, many students have approached the Supreme Court and local courts, staged protest demonstration in the scorching heat and organized campaigns on social media demanding independent investigations and a re-examination. Around 2.4 million candidates took the NEET, competing for about 100,000 spots in medical schools in the country.
Earlier, on 19 June, Modi’s newly formed coalition government cancelled the National Eligibility Test that choses candidates for public-funded research fellowships, just a day following a million students wrote the paper. This followed news reports that questions had been leaked “in the darknet” and were circulated on social media, said Dharmendra Pradhan, India’s Minister for Education.
The minister, did not specify how the paper was leaked. “Question leak is an institutional failure from the National Eligibility Test and they are assuring that there will be a reform committee and action will be taken,” the minister claimed.
Leaders of India’s opposition and legal experts have strongly criticized the Modi government over its failure to crack down on corruption in India’s elite exams that determine who goes on to become scholars and doctors.
MK Stalin, the chief minister of the southern Tamil Nadu state, said that NEET was a scam, and now, the entire India has admitted it. Chief Minister of Kerala Pinarayi Vijayan alleged the federal government of “gross inefficiency” that completely undermined the credibility of the national-level examination.
