Even as the number of Tamil Nadu’s government school students who qualify in the National Eligibility-cum Entrance Test (NEET) has gradually improved, their marks and participation as a percentage of their total strength remain a concern, an analysis of the data provided by the School Education Department showed.
Though the number of government school students who sat for the exam came down by 13% to 12,997 in 2023 compared to 14,979 in 2022, their participation has improved if one looked at the data for the past six years. The average number of students who took part in the exam between 2018 and 2021 was only around 6,000. Similarly, the percentage of government school students who qualified in the exam has increased from 22.1% in 2018 to 30.6% in 2023. However, an area of concern that needed further focus was the percentage of government school students who appeared for the test, compared to their total strength. As per the data, in the last two years, government school students accounted for roughly 45% of the total number of students who appear for Class XII examinations. For instance, in 2023, of the 8,03,385 students, 3,71,154 (46.2%) were from government schools while the remaining were from aided and private schools. When it came to NEET, 1,31,519 (30.4%) of the 4,32,231 aided and private school students took the exam. In comparison, only 12,997 (3.5%) of the 3,71,154 government school students took the test. The participation of government school students this year has declined, while that of students from other schools increased.
Another concern appeared to be the marks they scored. While the School Education Department was yet to release data on the range of marks that the government school students scored, the data released by the Krishnagiri district administration showed that only a small fraction of students scored above 300. According to this, 235 of the 481 students who participated in the exam qualified. However, only 23 of them scored over 300 marks.
The data also highlighted disparities in participation and qualifying percentage in different districts. For instance, 2,007 government school students participated in NEET from Salem, where 19,190 students appeared for Class XII exams.
However, only 416 from Tiruvannamalai sat for NEET even though 19,610 students in the district appeared for Class XII exams. The qualifying percentage also varied from 81.4% in Virudhunagar district to just 2.7% in Tenkasi district.
A senior official from the department cited sustained measures such as special coaching classes for improvement in qualifying percentage, and said the other concerns were gradually being addressed. G.R. Ravindranath, general secretary, Doctors Association for Social Equality, said that the 7.5 % reservation for government school students had encouraged many to take up NEET.
While the competitive exam is difficult for government school students, considering their socio-economic background, the government should further strengthen its efforts to make the exam easier for them, Mr. Ravindranath said.
(With inputs from P.V. Srividya).
