Congress MP and Leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi alleged on Monday that the credibility of all major examinations had been compromised under the National Democratic Alliance government.
Gandhi said it was obvious to the entire country that there was a serious problem in the country’s examination system, and that it was not restricted to this year’s National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test.
The National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test, or NEET, is conducted by the National Testing Agency for admissions to undergraduate medical courses.
The examination was held on May 5 and the results were declared on June 4, following which allegations of question paper leaks and other irregularities came to light. The Supreme Court is hearing a batch of petitions seeking a fresh exam citing alleged paper leaks, optical mark recognition sheet manipulations, impersonation and cheating.
On Monday, Gandhi accused Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan of evading responsibility for the alleged irregularities. “The minister has blamed everybody except himself,” the Congress leader said in the Lok Sabha. “I don’t even think he understands the fundamentals of what is going on here.”
Gandhi alleged that a lot of Indians believe that the rich can buy the country’s examination system.
“The issue is that there are millions of students in the country who are extremely concerned about what is going on and who are convinced that the Indian examination system is a fraud,” he said.
Gandhi asked Pradhan to explain what the Centre is doing to address the problem.
However, Pradhan denied any case of question paper leak in the last seven years.
“This [NEET-UG] matter is going on before the Supreme Court,” he said. “I can say with full responsibility that more than 240 exams have been conducted successfully by the NTA [National Testing Agency]. Better to wait and watch the Supreme Court’s judgement. The government has nothing to hide, and has put out all facts.”
On similar lines as Gandhi, Samajwadi Party chief and legislator Akhilesh Yadav said that the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance government will create new records in paper leaks.
He claimed that protesting students would not get justice till Pradhan continued as the education minister.
Responding to Yadav, Pradhan said that he has a list of how many paper leaks happened when the Samajwadi Party leader was the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh.
Also read: Will stricter laws prevent paper leaks?
Which exams were deferred in June?
The Centre started receiving a backlash from the Opposition in June after a series of examinations were cancelled or deferred.
Irregularities in the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test for undergraduate courses at medical colleges were the first ones that came to light.
Following this, the National Testing Agency also cancelled the University Grants Commission-National Eligibility Test, the National Common Entrance Test and the Joint Council of Scientific and Industrial Research-University Grants Commission National Eligibility Test.
These competitive entrance examinations were either cancelled or deferred in the light of allegations of paper leaks and other irregularities.
However, on June 29, new dates for these examinations were announced.
The University Grants Commission–National Eligibility Test, conducted for the post of assistant professor in universities and colleges, was held on June 18, but cancelled the next day on the grounds that its integrity “may have been compromised”.
Pradhan had said on June 20 that the question paper was leaked and circulated on the Telegram messaging app.
The Joint Council of Scientific and Industrial Research-University Grants Commission National Eligibility Test, conducted for the posts of Junior Research Fellowship and lectureship or assistant professor in universities, was deferred on June 21 the due to “unavoidable circumstances as well as logistic issues”.
The National Common Entrance Test is conducted for admissions to the four-year Integrated Teacher Education Programme in select central and state universities or institutions. It was postponed hours before it was scheduled to be held on June 12.
On June 22, the National Testing Agency also deferred the National Eligibility-Cum-Entrance Test for admissions to post-graduate medical courses in the country, also known as the NEET-PG exam.
The NEET-PG exam, which was scheduled for June 23, was cancelled “in the best interests of the students and to maintain the sanctity of the examination process,” the health ministry had said in a statement. It clarified that the rescheduled dates for the test would be announced after “a thorough assessment of the robustness of processes of NEET-PG Entrance Examination”.
Also read: ‘Recipe for disaster’: Why the NTA’s lack of transparency matters
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