After climate change activists Greta Thunberg and India’s very own Licypriya Kangujam raised their voice against the conduct of the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) and the Joint Entrance Exam (JEE), several other activists around the globe have also begin to voice their dissent. NEET and JEE is scheduled to be held in September even as the pandemic rages on leaving many candidates and their families in distress.
For days on end, the hashtag #postponeNEETJEE has been trending on social media. Several politicians, activists, industrialists and the common public have been demanding that the exam be postponed. However, the Supreme Court had ruled that it did not see any need to postpone the exam. Yesterday, Greta Thunberg, who was a favourite to win the Nobel Peace Prize last year tweeted her support for the students. While many applauded her for taking a stand, several in the country also trolled her for having an opinion on India when she had been ‘bunking’ school. Greta spearheaded the ‘Fridays for Future’ campaign in order to get school students interested in the climate change movement and demand immediate action from world leaders.
Licypriya, despite being only eight years old has been a loud voice in the country to protests against government inaction in climate change matters. The young citizen has been consistently encouraging more people to raise their voice against the exam, she has been calling on global leaders including in international agencies such as the UN to pay heed. She has been tweeting to the Prime Minister and other leaders to intervene and postponed the exam. She has pretty much single-handedly gotten the attention of climate change activists from across the globe to support the campaign to postpone the exam. Now several other climate change activists from around the globe have begun to tweet out their support as well.
Patricia Kombo from Kenya, who is the founder of the PaTree Initiative has said in a tweet that since students are the future leaders of tomorrow thus leaders should consider students’ demands for the postponement of the exam. Vanessa Nakate, the founder of RiseUpMovement has also tweeted in support, “Let's amplify the voices that are speaking up.”
An activist from Istanbul, Atlas Sarrafoglu said, “It is not acceptable to let Indian students take exams during this health crisis. This is a big health issue. Children are committing suicide, I stand with the children of India.” Another Climate Change activist going by the name Feenie Wright said with a placard that it was important to protect the mental health of students.
Jamie Margolin, the founder of ‘Zero Hour’ from Seattle pointed out that students are being forced to take the exam during the pandemic as well as a time when there are extreme floods as well, “This is putting students in danger,” she tweeted. Environmentalist, Elizabeth Wathuti from Nairobi tagged Licypriya in her post saying, “It’s so sad when children speak up for their rights, lives and safety but their voices go unheard. They shouldn’t have to go through this.”
An activist from Colombia, Felipe Sanchez pointed out that India was one of the worst affected countries by the pandemic and exposing students at this point because the government is not listening, he said was ‘unfortunate’. Kaossara Sani, also a climate change activist recorded a video exclusively to the Prime Minister asking the government to postpone the exam. Oladosu Adenike from Nigeria tweeted a video promising to stand by the people of India because the ‘crisis is everywhere’. Several others from African countries and many from Turkey, besides other countries also uploaded videos, messages and photos in solidarity with the students.
