Students across Maharashtra are jittery after NEET 2024 exam results as declared on June 4 have sparked controversy. Students and parents say they have lost all faith in the National Testing Agency (NTA), which conducts this entrance for admissions to undergraduate medical courses. Amidst all allegations, NTA and Union Education Ministry on Saturday said they will form a committee to look into results of students who got grace marks, and the verdict will be out in a week, so as to not affect the admission process.
This year, NTA declared 67 students as toppers, the result coming with a tremendous rank inflation. The exam had two toppers in 2023 and one in 2022. This year, some students also got 718 and 719 marks, which protesting students argue is impossible due to the marking system in place. Explaining the crux of the problem, NTA blames the issue on the granting of grace marks to around 1,600 students for loss of time and a wrong question.
Swaraj Ghavate, a student who took the exam at a centre in Gangapur, Maharashtra, said they got the exam paper 15 minutes late, but like students from other states, students of his centre were not provided any grace marks for the time lapse. “Getting the paper late is not new, it happens everywhere. But the NTA did not say that students would be given grace marks for this. Out of the blue, grace marks were granted only to students from particular states. The same thing happened with us too, of which no one took cognisance.”
Swaraj demands that NTA needs to come clean with exactly how many students were given grace marks, and on what criteria was it decided as to which student got how many grace marks.
During a press meet, NTA DG Subodh Kumar Singh, said grace marks for loss of time were given based on the answering efficiency of students. “Even if the loss of time is the same for two students, one might solve more questions in the same time, as compared with the other”, he said.
A student Girish Shelke, however, who scored 700 out of 720 marks, says grace marks provided to around 1,600 students is not enough to explain the rank inflation, which is manifold.
“In previous years on an average, for 650 marks the average rank would be between 2,000 to 3,000. This year it is 25,000! How much rank inflation can happen in a year? 5, 10, 15, 20, 40, 50 per cent? This is over 700 per cent! It could have also happened because of a mass paper leak.”
It is also alleged that the six students who topped the exam were from the same centre in Haryana.
Since the day of the exam, there have been allegations of a paper leak which NTA has continuously denied. Girish and his father Prashant suspect that the inconsistencies are far bigger and on a larger scale, and this is only the tip of the ice-berg. They have demanded an investigation into the matter.
Girish said, “In the press meet, they kept saying it is a problem only of 1,600 students, but it really is not. Last year, the same marks, which were good enough for a student to bag a seat in government college in Maharashtra, will not be enough to get a eat in the lowest ranked college in the state.”
Girish and Prashant are among those demanding a re-exam of NEET, “During COVID, too, admissions were given late, and we are okay with a small delay. But saying 25 lakh students taking the exam again is a daunting task is no excuse. They should also realise the future of 25 lakh students depends on it,” said Girish.
But Swaraj and his father Sudam have a different solution to the issue. They said grace marks should be completely deducted from the results. “This should be thoroughly investigated. NTA should declare a detailed report about grace marks. Then it should remove grace marks provided to all students and declare the result again with marks based on just the OMR sheet,” said Sudam.
About re-NEET, Sudam said, “A re-exam should be taken only at centres where the paper was leaked or which was involved in any fraud. We have to think about students too. This is not a class 8 exam that students will again prepare for it overnight. My son studied 18 hours everyday for two years to get a good result.”
Swaraj says the exam meant everything to him, and a score of 634 for the first time was a good result. Sudam says as per last year’s result Swaraj’s rank should have been around 10,000 but now it is 44,200.
Swaraj says he and all his friends are very tense currently, and have lost all faith in NTA. “Even if some students take a drop and take the exam again next year, what is the guarantee that NTA will not do the same thing again? We students prepare for exams so seriously and those who conduct it are seemingly not serious about it at all. At this rate, the cut off next year will be 720 marks for the open category. What is the point of taking the exam with so much miscommunication, and NTA fails in every way to conduct it ethically.”