NEET candidates demand 2nd attempt at exam

New Delhi: Although the National Testing Agency (NTA) successfully conducted the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET) 2022 on its scheduled date on July 17, the aspirants are now demanding another attempt at the exam.

The students have referred to the lack of adequate time for preparation as the reason for this demand. Besides, they have pointed out that the JEE aspirants get two attempts at the entrance examination and asked why the same facility cannot be availed by the NEET candidates.

NEET is the centralized common entrance examination for admission to Undergraduate medical courses in the country. The aspirants must pass this exam in order to secure admission in the MBBS, BDS, BAMS, BSMS, BUMS, BHMS programmes. Apart from this, NEET score is also valid for admission to BSc Nursing and BSc Life Sciences courses.

This year there were lot of protests by the NEET aspirants who had sought more time to prepare for the entrance test. However, the exam was held as per schedule. 

Although there has hardly been two days since the exam on Sunday, the students have already started demanding a re-conduction of the exam, citing inadequate time for preparation, and instances of malpractice during the exam.

Also Read: Mass Rigging in NEET 2022: CBI busts racket, 8 held

Taking to Twitter, the candidates are referring to the instances of malpractices in NEET and demanding either cancellation of the exam or a second attempt at it.

Apart from the instances of cheating, some of the aspirants have referred to the fact that two separate question papers were given to the students.

The aspirants have started questioning if JEE aspirants can get multiple attempts at the exam, why the same cannot be done for the NEET candidates.

Meanwhile, holding NTA guilty of the mistakes in the examination, some of the Twitter users have initiated a Digital Satyagrah, to provide the students with a platform to submit their complaints that they had to face while writing the UG medical entrance exam on last Sunday.

While some of the users are claiming to ban the exam altogether, some are of the opinion that the exam should not be banned merely because NTA failed to organize it in the proper manner.

Speaking to Bangalore Mirror in this regard, a medical aspirant from Bengaluru said, "JEE gets two attempts at the examination; so many other UG exams also get two attempts in a year. Every year several lakhs of students give the NEET exam and yet, only 10 per cent of them get admissions in good government colleges where they can afford the fees. The remaining students waste an entire year. We got nine months to prepare and in so many parts of the country the students were facing problems due to floods and heavy rains."

Some of the students have expressed their concern regarding their percentile as they would not be able to afford a seat in the private medical colleges without a good percentile. While commenting on the matter, an aspirant told the daily, "Not everyone can afford a college with Rs 50 lakh to 1 crore fee. Medical colleges are so expensive and our only option is government or semi-government colleges. But the seats are so limited."

Apart from voicing their problems on the social media, several aspirants are planning to approach the Delhi High Court in this regard.

However, all the students are not in favour of a second attempt at the exam. In this regard, a medical aspirant told the daily, "I do not think a second attempt is going to help as there are only limited number of seats. We already waited for the government to postpone the exam. If students are doubtful about their performance, then they should just start preparing for next year or look for other career options."

Despite continuous pleas from the aspirants to defer the exam, the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test for the Undergraduate medical courses was conducted as scheduled on Sunday i.e. July 17 with around 95 per cent attendance.

Several aspirants had been protesting for months on Twitter demanding more time for the preparation. They had claimed that the schedule for NEET 2022 was clashing with other exams and there was very little time for preparation. Apart from crying for Justice on Twitter, they had approached the Union Education Minister and the Prime Minister as well. However, despite their repeated pleas, the exam was conducted on its scheduled date.

This year NEET witnessed the highest number of applicants ever. Breaching the 18-lakh mark, a total of 18,72,329 candidates had registered for the largest entrance exam in the county of which 10.64 lakh were female.

Also Read: Female NEET candidates asked to remove undergarments while frisking, Human Rights Commission seeks report