A tentative list prepared of 1,291 students who took up the coaching provided by the government across the State indicated that students from Ramanathapuram, Nagapattinam and Chennai had scored higher marks than students from other districts.
In the 2017-18 academic year, the department had tied up with Speed Institute and had given coaching for students in 412 centres across the State till February and had conducted a crash course for a month in April right before the exam. Though not all students from government schools who wrote the NEET exam attended this course, around 8,500 students had taken it up.
“The School Education Department is in the process of collating information about the candidates from government and government aided schools who took up the NEET exam and will release a final list of student performance shortly. Based on last year’s cut off, we think that 30 to 40 students will get into government medical colleges this year,” said Pradeep Yadav, Secretary of the department.
Residential coaching camps
In Tamil Nadu, over 2,800 students from government and government aided schools had attended the residential coaching camp in nine colleges after being selected from their educational districts, a month before NEET.
S. Saravanan, a Biology teacher, who had also taken coaching classes as a part of the residential coaching programme said that the tests given and the material had been useful for the students. “The teachers have been informed that we should be prepared to help the students and begin coaching classes early this year. Additionally, with the new syllabus coming into being for Class XI, which has been designed keeping in mind the competitive exams, we are hoping that the students are trained effectively from Class XI itself,” he added.
“The pattern of a competitive exam like NEET does not favour Tamil medium State board students or students from rural areas which is reflected in the number of students qualifying from government and government aided schools. It is evident that students who are exposed to the NCERT syllabus are at much more of an advantage and it will take time as well as an overhaul of the teaching and evaluation patterns to get the students oriented better,” said K.P.O. Suresh, State President of the Tamil Nadu Post Graduate Teachers’ Association
With the new academic year having begun, a representative from Speed Institute said that they would be continuing their association with the education department and were expected to start classes earlier this year for the benefit of the students.