A Pandemic, Students, Exams And An Indifferent Govt
Prithwiraj Roy
The Preamble to the Indian Constitution says that the country is a “sovereign socialist secular democratic republic”. Is that true though? Does the Indian Government really care about its democracy? Let’s go back to the very beginning to examine.
The National Talent Agency (NTA) conducts the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) Mains and the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET), India’s two national-level entrance exams needed to qualify for engineering and medical studies. Approximately 25 lakh candidates appear in these to secure their careers, support their family and to serve our nation and the entire civilisation. However, during the pandemic, our government decided to postpone the examinations which were supposed to be conducted in the month of April as overcrowded test centres could make the condition worse. The revised dates of tests were in the month of July, but the situation didn’t improve and the exams were further postponed to September. Now in September, the condition is at its worst so far. India is breaking its own records over new Covid-19 infections each single day.
India has recorded more than 12 lakh fresh cases in August, higher than in any previous months and the highest count by any country during this month. Many regions of the states — Bihar, Assam, Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Maharashtra and Gujarat — have been severely flooded because of torrential downpour. In Bihar alone, over 7.7 million lives were affected by floods. There is a lack of public transportation available to travel from remote villages to exam- centres. We thought the government would again postpone exams considering such a reality, but no. They chose not to.
The Indian government’s decision was to hold the examinations in any way in September, following the SOP (Standard Operating Procedure). It’s funny that it postponed the exams when Covid-19 cases in the country were just a few thousands, but now, when they are in lakhs, they go ahead and conduct exams.
The SOP appears good on paper but on ground, it’s a huge failure. For example, from photos of the recently conducted Karnataka Common Entrance Test (KCET) examination, we can easily point out many protocol violations. This time, however, the government is deaf and blind. In fact, because of KCET alone, several new cases came up in Karnataka and this was just a state-level examination with two lakh candidates. If such a failure happens with nation-wide tests like JEE or NEET, it would surely create a disaster and would be impossible to deal with, because the count would naturally be higher.
It was suggested to us by advocate Alakh Alok Srivastava and Anubha Shrivastava, child rights activist and President of India Wide Parents Association, that we approach the Supreme Court regarding the same. In a rush, eleven students from different states filed petitions seeking further postponement of the two national level examinations, as there was not much time left for the exams, and Alakh Alok Srivastava was our advocate. However, on the 17th of August, our petitions were dismissed with the reason that the Court “could not intervene in policy matters”. Justice Arun Mishra, who headed the three-judge Bench, asked the petitioners rhetorically — “Education should be opened up. The pandemic may continue for a year more. Are you going to wait for another year? Do you know what is the loss to the country and the career peril to the students?”
We had stated everything in the petitions — starting from the failure of SOP in KCET, the unavailability of public transportation to the condition of the flood-affected candidates but even the Court was not ready to listen to us.
The judges didn’t understand how a candidate from a lower class family could not afford a private car simply to reach the examination centre; they didn’t understand how a candidate from a flood-affected area could do the same. Will the Indian government provide them with helicopters? For many candidates, it is their last chance to appear in some examinations. I have come across a candidate (who prefers to remain anonymous) who belongs to a lower class family, with both parents HIV-positive. He is 25 years old and it probably is his last chance to write NEET. What if he gets infected and consequently passes it on to his sick parents? Why is he being made to choose between — his parents’ death or appearing in the examination?
Many who are Covid-19 positive are asymptomatic and it’s quite impossible to identify them. The situation would be unimaginable if such candidates also appear for the exams, with no fault of their own. Ex-AIIMS Director and Directors of some IITs have stated that there would be no academic loss if exams are further postponed for 2-3 months; Prime Minister Narendra Modi too has said that Covid-19 vaccines would be available within the same period of time. If it is so, why can’t these exams be postponed until the vaccines have arrived and some normalcy have been restored? This is within the purview of the government’s will – if they wanted, they easily can postpone. Even BJP MP Subramanian Swamy has written letters to the PM and HRD Ministry regarding the same issue. Almost everyday, Twitter and other social media platforms are flooded with hashtags like #PostponeJEENEET, #PostponeExamsInCovid, #SurakshaBeforePariksha and the like.
Meanwhile, HRD Minister R.P Nishank stated in a press conference that as much as 80-85% students have downloaded their JEE admit cards and that they are willing to appear for the examination. What a greatly illogical statement by the Minister for Education of the country! Because, we have seen countless polls by various news channels and other sources where the majority of students voted for the exams to be postponed. The Chief Minister of West Bengal, Mamata Banerjee, has started metro-train service and launched a few extra buses in order to aid the students, but is this enough? Will these trains run between remote villages and is it safe to use public transportation in such times? Are such facilities thoroughly sanitised? We have no answers yet.
We approached several politicians but the response was the same everywhere. Neither the Prime Minister nor the Home Minister had enough time to think about students, considered the “future of the country”. Most shocking were “tweets” that suggested that there is a lobby forcing the Education Ministry not to postpone the exams. R.P Nishank also stated that postponing the exams would result in an opportunity cost of at least ₹4,800 crore. Additionally, even before the official release from the National Talent Agency (NTA), a notice from NTA was released by a random teacher from an Allen Coaching Institute. How is this possible? Who all have been sold out — the Indian government, the Supreme Court, national news channels, the NTA or all of these? There were attempts to approach West Bengal’s Education Minister Partha Chatterjee as well. The only response we received was that the Chief Minister would handle the situation. Nothing has been handled so far. If state governments cared about the safety of their people, they would have provided proper transportation facilities or they should have invoked the DMA (Disaster Management Act) to postpone the examinations, but they haven’t done any of this.
How can a government force students to appear for exams in such a situation? How can a Covid-19 positive candidate write an exam? Does it mean they have no right to education? Is it not a violation of Article 14, the Human Rights Act? Is the government not being autocratic?
To put it bluntly, the failure of the SOP in exams like KCET, Comedk, and GUJCET have left us utterly frightened. The demand is not cancellation, it is only postponement.
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