Updated: October 18, 2020 11:58:08 am
The disruption of education due to the pandemic has likely hurt most students, but experts have warned of a disproportionate impact on girls in school and women in higher education.
The ongoing pandemic appears to have affected young women aspiring to medical school this year more than their male counterparts.
The Sunday Express analyzed data from 2017 to find that, as every year, while more girls (7,48,866) than boys (6,18,075) turned up for the National Income and Eligibility Test (NEET), the attendance rate of the Girls had, for the first time in four years, lagged behind boys.
This year, the overall attendance rate fell from 92.85% to 85.57%, but the division by gender shows that the drop is much more pronounced for girls. According to the National Testing Agency (NTA), 86.25% of registered male candidates took the test, which is 6.38 percentage points less than last year. On the other hand, 85.02% of the girls who had registered took the exam this time, a drop of 8.01 percentage points from 2019.
The Union government has been conducting the medical entrance test for admission to approximately one lakh of MBBS and BDS seats across the country by order of the Supreme Court. Attendance data for 2017, 2018, and 2019 show that female applicants have always had a higher attendance rate than their male counterparts.
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The timing of this year’s national medical and engineering test was mired in controversy with a section of students and parents demanding a further postponement due to the growing number of Covid cases and movement restrictions in place across the country. The examination was carried out as scheduled on September 13 after the Supreme Court dismissed the requests for postponement.
The disruption of education due to the pandemic has likely hurt most students, but experts have warned of a disproportionate impact on girls in school and women in higher education. The steepest drop in girls’ attendance for NEETs is related to this warning.
However, a senior NTA official believes the lower attendance has more to do with the Board’s test results.
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“We tried to figure out the reasons when we found that overall attendance was much lower this year. In pre-Covid times, students used to apply for NEET before their Board exam result. A student can enter a medical school only if they have achieved the required minimum percentage on the Class 12 exam. This year, NEET was held after the results of the Board. Students who did not qualify for the Board exam probably did not take the test, ”the senior officer told The Sunday Express.
When asked specifically about the lower attendance among girls, the officer noted that there were more girls than boys who qualified as NEETs. The grading rate (expressed as a percentage of those who took the test) for NEETs is almost the same as last year: 57.15% of the girls who took the test scored compared to 55.58% of the kids.
Among the states, the largest drop in attendance was seen in Meghalaya, Gujarat, Kerala, Karnataka, Sikkim, Mizoram, Assam, Maharashtra, Goa, and West Bengal.
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