The Central Board of Secondary Education data showed on Monday just 39.55% candidates from Tamil Nadu, who appeared for NEET 2018, cleared the examination held to select students for undergraduate medical and dental courses across the country.
According to the board, which conducted the exams last month, out of the 114,302 aspirants from Tamil Nadu 45,366 students cleared NEET 2018. Last year, about 83,859 candidates appeared for NEET and 32,750 cleared the exam.
Chennai-based Keerthana became the state topper with 676 marks out of 720 and secured the all-India rank 12 in NEET result 2018.
Kalpana Kumari from Bihar bagged the all-India rank 1 with a percentile of 99.99 in NEET result 2018.
The board’s data showed out of over 12.69 lakh students, who appeared for the exam across the country, 7.14 lakh have qualified for admissions to 66,000 seats in medical and dental courses across the country.
The highest number of students who cleared NEET 2018 are from Uttar Pradesh, where 76,778 candidates qualified, followed by Kerala at 72,682 and 70,184 aspirants from Maharashtra.
Experts said students from the state who could afford private coaching classes cleared NEET 2018 but those from rural and poor economic background failed to pass the exam.
{{/usCountry}}Experts said students from the state who could afford private coaching classes cleared NEET 2018 but those from rural and poor economic background failed to pass the exam.
{{/usCountry}}“The inequality in providing education from the primary education level is the reason for this fall,” educationalist Prince Gajendra Babu said while speaking to the Hindustan Times.
TKS Elangovan, member of Parliament and spokesperson of opposition party DMK, said the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test was completely against the state’s interests and will affect the 69% reservation for the Other Backward Class community.
“As just 39.55% students have cleared NEET from TN, outsiders will take the seats in the medical colleges in Tamil Nadu which was created by the state’s own sources. The ruling party failed to handle this issue to get an exemption for the state,” Elangovan said.