NEET stress: Another student committed suicide in Tamil Nadu
Chennai:
Another candidate of the highly competitive national exam for admission to medical courses committed suicide in Tamil Nadu, a day before the National Eligibility Test cum Entry or NEET is carried out amid the coronavirus crisis.
The 19-year-old Madurai woman was on the waiting list after she gave NEET last year. In a note the student left, she said she was “apprehensive.”
“The girl completed Class 12 in 2017 and last year, although she had passed NEET, she was on the waiting list. Her father is a deputy inspector and her mother is a government employee,” a police officer told NDTV.
Another 19-year-old student who had given NEET twice committed suicide on Wednesday in the Ariyalur district of Tamil Nadu.
The state has been asking the center to defer to NEETs due to the coronavirus crisis. Going one step further, PMK founder S Ramadoss demanded on Wednesday that NEET be permanently canceled. “The abolition of NEET is the only solution,” he said Wednesday.
DMK chief MK Stalin is another fierce critic of stopping NEET amid the COVID-19 pandemic. He’s been asking the center to postpone it. “NEET destabilizes the students,” Stalin said.
Deputy Chief Minister O Panneerselvam expressed regret. “Students must learn to face any situation with guts and parents must help them in this,” said Panneerselvam of AIADMK.
The Supreme Court on Wednesday refused to admit petitions seeking to postpone or cancel NEETs scheduled for tomorrow. A bank headed by Judge Ashok Bhushan said authorities will take all possible steps to carry out NEETs safely amid the pandemic.
MDMK founder and Rajya Sabha MP Vaiko criticized the BJP-run center, saying that student suicides in the state were occurring due to NEET’s “imposition” on them.
Mr. Vaiko said that despite the high scores from Class 12, students from the poorest sections were “leaked” into NEET and their medical dreams “destroyed.” “Canceling NEET alone can prevent such deaths,” he said in a statement.
Several opposition-ruled states had called for exams to be postponed in a way that achieves the dual goals of ensuring that students’ academic year is not wasted and that their health and safety are not compromised.
For nearly a decade, Tamil Nadu had abolished the medical entrance exam, citing that it creates stress among students and that poor students cannot afford private training. He made medical admissions based on grades from class 12. During the UPA rule, the state had obtained presidential consent exempting the state from NEET. However, the BJP government rejected the exemption.
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