Officials play by the book; students and parents cry foul

Heavy frisking and strict adherence to the rules marked the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET), the qualifying exam for admission to medical colleges which was conducted on Sunday.

A total of 1,07,480 candidates from the State had registered for NEET, including 24,720 aspirants who took the test in Tamil. As many as 3,685 candidates from Madurai, Tiruchi and Tirunelveli were allocated centres in Ernakulam.

With NEET made compulsory for admission to courses under the Indian systems of medicine from this year, a total of 25,206 more candidates had registered for the test.

Though the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE), which conducts NEET, had posted instructions on its website, scores of students and parents had a tough time complying with them. In some schools, parents had to snip the sleeves of their children (only short sleeves were allowed); girls also had to remove jewellery, hair clips and dupattas. In some centres, students who arrived a few minutes late were not allowed inside the centre. Flash protests staged by a few parents came to no avail.

At Kendriya Vidyalaya, Sowripalayam, a candidate fainted in the school towards the end of the examination and was rushed to a hospital.

At a centre in West Mambalam, a group of girls from a government girls higher secondary school in Chidambaram had come in whites. “We wore white after reading the instructions on the internet,” said M. Madhumathi.

Heat adds to woes

K. Sugapriya, who also took the test from the same centre, is a student of St. Philomena Higher Secondary School in Ariyalur, of which Anita – who committed suicide last year to protest against NEET – was a student. Anita had approached the Supreme Court against NEET last year. Ms. Sugapriya said five other students from the school took the test in Chennai.

While the students took the three-hour test, parents waited outside the venue, sometimes with no shade to protect them from the scorching sun.

R. Murugan, a welder from Thirukovilur, came with his daughter to the venue at 4 a.m. as train services to Chennai had been hit.

R. Kalyanasundaram of Pudukottai, a parent who was waiting outside a test venue in Coimbatore, said the examination centres could have opened a few classrooms for parents who were forced to wait on the streets.

But D. Rajkumar, who had flown in from Singapore as his daughter A. Merlin was taking the test in Coimbatore, said the arrangements were good and the instructions had been clear.