NEET can’t continue as a make-or-break exam

When you have converged all entrance exams into one, you can’t have a single point of failure. The concept isn’t alien.

Two decades ago, on a hot Sunday afternoon, I was writing what felt like the most important exam of my life. It was a day I had been preparing for over two years. My parents, probably, had been preparing for it since the day they first thought of having a child.

When you aren’t able to solve a problem, sweating, or even bleeding, in 40 degrees heat, all you see is your parents’ face and their sacrifices. [Photo credit: Bachchan Kumar/HT Photo]

It was the IIT-JEE. Back then, there were no JEE Mains and JEE Advanced. The first stage was called the JEE Screening, and only around 15,000 students cleared it to earn the right to write the final examination — the JEE Mains. I managed to clear the first level, and was seated at a desk, waiting for the invigilator to distribute the mathematics question paper. Our guy was probably a bit annoyed, forced to work on a Sunday, a day he would have spent with his family. But here he was, “invigilating” 40-odd kids who would never forget those two hours for the rest of their lives.

A familiar classroom, an unfamiliar pressure

My examination centre was familiar territory — the same school where I had sat for the Class XII board exams. There was something reassuring about walking through those gates again. A famous alumnus of that school, Mahendra Singh Dhoni, wasn’t famous yet.

The question papers, of 60 marks, were soon passed around — 12 questions, five marks each. The first question was an arithmetic progression problem. I took my own sweet time to solve it; then, I moved on to an “area under the curve” question. As I finished plotting the graph, I looked around, to see if a familiar shape appeared in someone else’s answer sheet. I am not proud of this, but it is an involuntary response for most.

A student bleeding, but still fighting

And then, I saw the kid next to me with his eyes closed, leg bandaged, with a blot of fresh blood in the centre. I could see a few drops of blood on the floor too. He was in immense pain, but he persisted with finding that definite integral. Maybe he faced an accident on the way to the centre, but I only had three seconds of mindspace to give to this tragedy — 10 other questions were staring at me. I had lived 1,000-plus kilometres away from my parents for two years for these two hours, same as probably most of the 40 kids in that room, all bearing injuries, mental if not physical.

Imagine being the eldest child of the family, with two siblings. You do well at the school in your small town, always in the top three, have never lost a mark in mathematics, and the teachers are vocally proud of you. Your father thinks you are his best bet. And he moves mountains to get you the best coaching, the best teachers, and the best IIT factory on his clerical salary. Often a sunk cost. But, loans are taken, modest lodgings mortgaged, siblings deprived, and numerous other pains taken by numerous people you call your own. All of this will play in your head when you aren’t able to solve a problem, sweating, or even bleeding, in 40 degrees heat. All you see is your parents’ face, and that mortgaged house.

Now imagine there are no other exams you can take, this is the only one in the year you have to pass to get into your preferred college. Or any college an education loan can afford. That exam is called NEET.

There are no second chances, if you can’t make it to the ~64,000 government-college seats that two million students are fighting for; a private college seat is 10x or even more expensive.

And that’s why there are NEET suicides — 32 in 2025. Add to this the uncertainty of a paper leak, and an already vulnerable mind may see no other go. That’s why we need to reform this examination system. The first thing is to fortify this day, when the nation stops so that two million kids can reach their centres in time. Question-setters need to be isolated till the exam is completed. It’s a job for the army, not the academicians. Look at how China conducts the Gaokao.

NEET should be offered twice a year, so a kid who had a bad day can still believe that all is not lost. When you have converged all entrance exams into one, you can’t have a single point of failure. The concept isn’t alien. CBSE Class X board will be held twice a year, and anyone can write it the second time, even to improve scores.

Twenty years ago, I secured a rank of 5,433. It wasn’t enough to get into an IIT, but I did all right in my life later because I got more chances. Let’s give our children more attempts and keep it fair. They will surely make us proud.

Abhishek Asthana is a tech and media entrepreneur, and tweets as @gabbbarsingh. The views expressed are personal.