Late opening of coaching centres leaves NEET aspirants unprepared

These centres, started in the backdrop of massive protests after the suicide of a high-scoring medical aspirant, S Anitha of Ariyalur, were mere eyewash, charged teachers and students. 

It was after losing the battle before the Supreme Court that the Tamil Nadu government announced setting up free coaching centres to help the medical aspirants from government school to prepare for NEET. 

The Education Department had appointed experts and co-ordinators, and entered into tie-ups with various private organisations to coach the underprivileged students. 

However, experts, teachers, trainers and students whom DTNext spoke to, said these 400-odd government coaching centres have failed to serve their purpose. For, they were launched very late, by which time the students were caught up in the board examinations; the preparations focused mostly on Class 12 syllabus though a majority of questions are from Class 11; trainers were paid low remuneration and that too irregularly; and finally, outdated syllabus that urgently require revamp. 

“The government is clearly not aware of the effort that goes into preparing for NEET. The coaching has to start from Class 11 itself because more than 60 per cent of the questions are asked from that syllabus,” pointed out S Natrajan, a retired teacher who coaches students at a private institution. 

Without such a structured preparation, many students, like S Vali, a Class 12 student hailing from K-Pudhur taluk in Madurai, are struggling to cope with the pressure that such competitive examinations entail, especially with such short time left. 

The coaching began only February, but Vali had to skip classes for the entire next month because of the board examination. And now, she is grappling with complicated topics like laws of motion in physics, thermodynamics in chemistry and molecular structure in biology, all of which she has to learn and understand in just two weeks – the entrance test is scheduled on May 6. 

Despite the State claiming that the centres are functioning across the State, they are unlikely to help those like Vali, who are most likely to find themselves out of the reckoning for yet another year.