Kishore Shah
Winning at any cost seems to be an acceptable value in schools, colleges, businesses and societies. Entrance examinations are creating a pandemic of anxiety and stress, which is quietly building mental health issues in almost all walks of life; a price we have already started paying.
In a contagiously aspirational country like India, with a growing gap between vision and execution, entrance exams seems to be the ultimate and the only gate for ‘moksha’ which serves a handful and troubles a significantly large pool of talent which is not tapped or harnessed, and left with a lifelong scar of incompetence which in reality is not the case.
We are only making or listening to big talks, debates and slogans like “follow your passion, do what you love, follow your heart” but are there enough platforms, systems at ground level for students to assess themselves? Are there enough competent counselors? Are there career avenues to pursue? Are there career linked employment opportunities to endorse and support these larger than life statements? The response for sure is “unsure” which means that the youth have to fend for themselves and that makes the inroads for disabling belief system something which stays with forever.
Education in India has several overtones – mythological, social, economic, political, etc. However, when it comes to screening the competence, also popularly called as entrance examination or a dreaded word test, there is a vast scope for improvement especially in the NEET medical entrance tests. It has a legacy of teething problems be it language, errors in questions, issues with conducting exams, download of hall tickets, servers crashing, etc. To add to the existing woes the formation of NTA came as glimmer of hope but it was eclipsed by the pandemic. However, we had high expectations from it beyond eliminating AIIMS/JIPMER entrance test. This agency did not do anything superior, smarter, swifter. The only thing they did is to declare NEET as the only exam for admission to all Medical colleges in the country, which also includes institutes of world repute like JIPMER/AIIMS; a drastic contradiction to the way IIT/KVPY hold their entry assessment and this flaw needs to be amended immediately .
The medical examinations have almost struggled on their assessment in comparison to the IIT. It took years for MCI to incorporate competency based education but with the current pandemic nobody knows how it will get installed, implemented. On paper, yes, for sure we will have all compliances met.
It is said that the way to hell starts with the best of intentions, what the educational system/department clearly lacks is a genuine, seamless implementation, monitoring and course correction of its strategy, system, structure and people. It is largely because institutional heads prefer to work at minimum acceptable levels largely due to fear of consequences and if there is escalation it is the norm to get into oscillating blame game. The end result is status quo and amid all this there is a continuous flow of newer initiatives one after another, like popcorn which tastes good as long it is warm but has zero value in long run.
We need to understand and accept the fact that we have premier institutes which were built over years of vision, dedication, sacrifice, research, talent investment and teaching methodologies. When it comes to entrance exams IITs were first to create the filters by having IIT Mains exams and followed by IIT Advance because the potential required to cope with the standards of IIT needs a different level of talent.
NTA made all medical institutes statistically same by having one common entrance exam with only one level filter, isn’t it absurd? If you do not trust me, check the interviews of toppers who all want to be in AIIMS/JIPMER. If we have only one level assessment/single entrance exams or increase the seats or open more institutions without focusing on execution capacity, it is surely a recipe for damaging the premier institutes.
The dark side of preparation
The population appearing for entrance exams from the conditioned herd mentality segment of coaching classes and certain geographic locations like Kota are also proudly called factory. This speaks volumes of the underlying values, process we give to education and life.
Just glance through the full-page advertisement flashing after every competitive entrance exam – the toppers almost feature in all the coaching institutes! So, it leaves us to ponder on the investment done by the student in terms of fees, time and effort as each coaching class claims and counter claims the credit of success or is it straight buyout like auction in IPL!
The toppers are flooded with lakhs as cash awards, huge banners, cover page advertisements, tablets, etc. This further intensifies the divide among those qualified and those who cannot make it to premier institutes just by one exam – NEET! It also fuels wrong aspirations, burdens students who may have some other career dreams.
I have personally experienced that under the name of rigor how coaching classes psyche students and are forced to appear for each and every entrance tests just to keep the winning streak as a bait for the next batch of students. I have also seen several mentally breaking down with humiliation when they defy the dictate of these coaching classes. Students get fatigued and their performance dips. The worst part is that in pursuit of several entrance exams they are left nowhere and then comes a defensive face-saving press note.
Let us go down the education value chain, the pre-coaching for entrance exams has now moved to standard eight which was earlier set after standard 10. So, is it hype or is it the need or is it a tactical game plan to condition the consciousness and rake revenue. As long as the assessment patterns do not change such mushrooming brainwashing centres will keep robbing us of our mental peace, money and joy.
Just imagine the stress we are inducing in a student from class seven to 12 – Five years and during these adolescent years the value they are supposed to imbibe in schools goes for a toss, schools are reduced to agencies which facilitate board exams. These students by the time they come to professional institutes are almost burned out and then they simply do not perform or take to drugs. We are systematically creating damaged human beings as they are conditioned to hyper focus on end results.
We need to restrain from knee jerk initiatives and any pan India project/initiative should have transparency and space to voice the differences. There should be a platform for deliberations as education needs deeper thought, reflection before any initiative is bought in public domain.
India has abundant thinkers, experts who are well-versed with ground realities and have a strong vision, capacity, capability to take education to the next level, but what we lack is a political will to bring large scale integration. So either the plans have only “bird’s eye view” or they have “worm’s eye view” and then all the salvage operations starts through media trials when things go out of control. We have no other option but to approach courts and further burden them.
The way forward…
In medical exams, NEET was introduced to minimise the multi state independent evaluation and the accrued logistics issues for students to scout for admission and other related challenges. It was a welcome gesture but we also had AIIMS/JIPMER India’s premier medical institutes holding their independent assessment and if one compares the assessment of AIIMS/JIPMER, entrance was way ahead and different from that of NEET and it reflected the type of talent required to survive and excel the rigor of teaching pedagogy and the core of such premier institutes.
So in a way if one draws rough comparatives with IIT we had a 2 stage filtering in place as under
NEET = IIT Mains
AIIMS /JIPMER = IIT ADVANCE
If one does a longitudinal analysis then the percentage of students who qualify for NEET (top scores) has no strong correlation with their AIIMS/JIPMER score and even ranks. NEET exams are so well decoded by coaching institutes that they are almost predictable and once this is in place, what you need is a factory mechanism to churn out products. NEET is still with paper pencil when AIIMS/JIPMER went online making it further difficult to get the question papers to decode the patterns.
Also the exams conducted by KVPY/AIIMS/JIPMER have some wonderful assessment layers like Scientific reasoning, Assertion & reasoning, Logical reasoning, General knowledge and Interview by Scientists.
It will not be possible to put all this in one NEET exam, however, if the NTA rethinks on the lines of IIT/KVPY they should immediately build two layers of assessment as under:
NEET –MAINS which is the standard entry exams that helps students get admission to state and municipal corporation run medical colleges in their state and the standard reservation of 10% in other states.
NEET –ADVANCE which should be conducted jointly by AIIMS/JIPMER/KVPY which enables admission to premier institutes like AIIMS/JIPMER/IISER/IISc. The students who qualify for certain cut-off in NEET –MAINS will be eligible for NEET – ADVANCE.
This way we will have strong correlations and there will be talent mapping and good fitment ration or overlap. There will be enough room for those students who do not follow rote method, also assessment technically should have different forms of assessment criteria not just MCQ.
There is no great preparation to be done for NTA to create two levels of assessment, as AIIMS/JIPMER/KVPY were as it is holding these exams every year till last year, in fact the number of students appearing for NEET Advance will also drastically come down and there will be certain fairness in assessment and entry to premier institutes.
Atmanirbhar Bharat in its true sense
In our journey of Atmanirbhar Bharat we are conveniently forgetting that to build world class products and services we need world class educational system and world class assessment. We need to strike a good balance with quantity and quality as in our journey of vocal for local and then to make it global quality cannot be compromised at any cost.
As regards entrance exams, technology, logistic and infrastructure challenges we have enough MNC’s who have world-class supply chain process, one needs to redefine CSR and integrate the business firms to support for a good cause.
We also have to factor that examination is just one piece or stage of the assessment and NTA needs to build on the entire value chain of entrance examination make it superior, smarter, simpler. We cannot rob the students of their overall development. We need to clarify what is winning and success.
Entrance exams need to be more focused on success and send a matured feedback to students on their talent fitment.
Leaders should understand that by being dogmatic we are creating a tiny disciplined army which says yes to everything even if it is gravely wrong or piecemeal decision. We cannot afford to put premier institutions on a downward slide as it is detrimental to the national. They should give responsible autonomy to NTA.
It is the right time for NEET to be NEAT in the interest of all the stake holders.
(Writer is an organization development consultant and talent analyst)
