NEET not so Neat after all

 NEET is not so neat after all, another exam bites the dust. Congratulations! I think we as a country must be having the dubious distinction of reducing the conduct of examinations to a pathetic joke. Unfortunately it is our millions of students who are at the receiving end of these fiascos. My heart goes out to these poor souls, who have been burning the midnight oil slogging for two to three years, some for even longer durations, in the hope that they will be taking the Hippocratic oath some day. I am sure they are aware of the pitfalls of the wretched examination system of ours but even they could not have even in their wildest imagination conjured up such a scenario. 

I am reminded of a Hindi declamation that I participated in while at RIMC Dehradun as an eleven year old, it went something like this, " Pariksha (exam) is actually "par ichha", i.e. it is the examiner's wish to subject the student to this torture called exam which is worse than third degree. The student poor fellow memorises by rote, preparing for the exam but the teacher derives perverse pleasure by asking only those questions which either the student hasn't prepared or has forgotten the answers. No student is ever happy preparing and appearing for the exam, given a choice they would obviously bunk and junk the exam system itself rather than flunk. While school, college life is fun, it is this exam which plays the spoilsport literally.

All of us have  faced this menace all through our lives and survived to tell the tale, the best one being when you have successfully answered a question and are triumphantly advancing to the next one with the confidence boosted, when the class topper gets up and points out a mistake in the question, which the teacher acknowledges and goes on to correct it, or when he/she asks for the log table and you could not figure out as to why did he need one. If looks could kill, the topper would have been a dead person a long time ago. If class toppers are at the receiving end of the curses of the rest of the class, imagine the plight of these JEE/NEET toppers, with millions of students wishing them ill. But God obviously doesn't pay any heed to these losers and the toppers go on to excel later in life as well. 

All that is in jest, but frankly the education system itself needs an overhaul, merely tinkering with the exams is treating the symptoms and not the disease. Right from Vedic times, our civilisation is based on oral rather than written words, we memorise our scriptures, but somewhere down the line, we stopped asking questions, just relying on reproducing what was read without actually delving into the science or history behind it. Even today, the teachers do not like the inquisitive minds, they would rather have the Chatur Ramalingam of Three Idiots notoriety rather than a Rancho, as they themselves have grown up in this system, where why and wherefores were not encouraged. 

Be that as it may, I know a de novo look at our education system is not a priority for any political party, so till then at least a decent clean examination system where the students don't feel cheated is the least that the government of the day must ensure. We have SAT, GRE TOEFL exams being conducted without any such incidents of malpractices. These are conducted all over the world, all the year round, without any hitch. Pray why don't we take a leaf out of this system and implement a similar system in place, where the exams are conducted all through the year, whenever the student feels he is ready to take the test, he should be permitted and should he want to improve his score, he should be permitted to repeat the test, of course at a cost. I know with millions of students, this is a huge challenge but if the exam can be taken any time of the year, then the number of students taking the exam at one time will gradually become more manageable. These competitive exams are all conducted on line now, the scores must be given out, then and there, so that there is no scope for these kingpins to play around with the future of our students and in the bargain our own future as a nation.