A newspaper advertisement titled ‘Grab your seats with low NEET UG/PG score’ had gone viral on the social media, as EdexLive reported earlier on June 26, especially at a time when the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test- Undergraduate (NEET-UG) exam is facing a number of allegations like paper leaks, malpractice, impersonation and high-cut off inflation.In another incident, a man was arrested in Belagavi, Karnataka, today, July 16, for scamming NEET aspirants who have scored less in the exam, by promising them MBBS seats in return for huge amounts of money. As per reports, he managed to collect a total of Rs 1.08 crore from the students.
These incidents have raised one major question — amid the ongoing confusion about the future of the NEET-UG exam and due to the commercialisation of medical education in India, are low scorers being targeted by fraudsters?
Dr Sharad Kumar Agarwal, National President of the Indian Medical Association (IMA), said that while concerning, these instances are not just limited to this year.
“This is not something new that happened this year. These consultants always target students who are unable to bag government medical seats. Before counselling, these advertisements come up because, for students, it is difficult to figure out which private medical college to choose. The government does not provide any information or data about private medical colleges,” said Dr Sharad Kumar Agarwal.
Instead of increasing the number of private medical seats, which leads to the commercialisation of medical education, the government should focus on ensuring the quality of medical education and faculty, Dr Agarwal added.
Kapil Gupta, CEO of NEETprep, had a similar opinion about the current situation in medical education.
“You can not necessarily say that low-scorers are being targeted. These people statistically facilitate admissions into private medical colleges where the tuition fee is already very high, anywhere starting from Rs 65 lakh. The cut-off this year is 655, which means even a student scoring 650 out of 720, which used to be considered a fairly decent score, isn't able to get a government seat” Kapil said.
Educationists added that in a field like medical education, no seats should be allotted through management quota, to ensure the quality of the healthcare sector.
“There are many loopholes in NEET-UG and PG exams. The seats that are not filled even after the mop-up round are handed over to colleges which they fill via the management quota. These seats are sold through the agents. As an educationist, I feel that not even a single seat should be filled through management quota, especially for a profession like medicine. Admission should only be valid through counselling. These loopholes lead to all the problems and scams,” opined Educationist Dr Jayaprakash Gandhi.
