Chennai: Chief Minister M K Stalin has written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, urging the Union Government to immediately withdraw the decision mandating appearance in the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) for admissions to allied and health care courses, including Bachelor of Physiotherapy (BPT) and Bachelor of Occupational Therapy (BOT).
Decision critique
In a demi official letter, the Chief Minister expressed strong opposition to the recent move by the National Commission for Allied and Health Care Professions (NCAHP) making NEET mandatory for admission to the two undergraduate programmes from the forthcoming academic year. He termed the decision “hasty and ad hoc” and warned that it would have “multiple deleterious consequences” for students, particularly those from economically weaker backgrounds.
Financial burden
Stalin pointed out that Tamil Nadu has consistently opposed NEET for MBBS admissions and had cautioned against its extension to other courses. He said the recent communications from the Union Health Ministry indicated that the inclusion of BPT and BOT under NEET was only the first step in a larger plan to eventually bring all allied and health care courses under the entrance examination regime.
The Chief Minister stressed that the move had been undertaken without due consultation with State governments, which are constitutionally responsible for both health and education. Such unilateral action, he said, was “totally unacceptable”.
Citing the experience of NEET in MBBS admissions, Stalin noted that around 1.4 lakh students were compelled to undergo costly coaching and compete for roughly 12,000 medical seats. This, he said, had imposed unnecessary financial burdens, stress and anxiety on families while rendering school board examination performance largely irrelevant.
He warned that extending NEET to allied health care courses would worsen the situation. Tamil Nadu alone has over 50,000 seats in such courses, with aspirants largely drawn from poorer socio-economic backgrounds than MBBS candidates. Forcing these students to spend on NEET coaching would amount to a “gross injustice”, he said.
Academic rationale
The Chief Minister also questioned the academic rationale behind prescribing mere appearance in NEET as a qualifying condition. Globally, eligibility is determined either by passing an examination or securing a minimum score, he observed. Mandating only appearance, he argued, appeared designed to normalise and expand NEET across society, benefiting coaching centres at the cost of poor families.
Stalin further pointed out that even the quality argument for NEET in MBBS admissions had become irrelevant due to progressively diluted cut-off scores, which in some cases were close to zero.
Reiterating that admission modalities for allied health care courses must remain within the jurisdiction of State governments, the Chief Minister urged the Prime Minister to review the mandate and instruct the NCAHP to drop the NEET requirement immediately.
