CHENNAI: Actor and Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam president Vijay, for the first time, strongly voiced his opinion against the National Eligibility-cum Entrance Test (NEET), stating that the exam was against students from rural and socio-economically poorer backgrounds, the rights of the States, and the diversity needed in education.He said the news about irregularities in this year’s examination have made people realise that there was no need for NEET in the country. Stating that he wholeheartedly welcomed the resolution passed by the Tamil Nadu government in the Assembly against NEET, he urged the Union government to respect the sentiments of the people of Tamil Nadu and grant the immediate relief of exempting the State from NEET, without delay.He further said the permanent solution would be to move the subject of education from the State List to Concurrent List of the Constitution.Vijay had said that he did not want to discuss politics during the function organised by his party last week for honouring achievers in Class 10 and 12 exams. However, in the second instalment of the event organised on Wednesday, he said that it would not be right if he did not talk about the important issue of NEET.Addressing the students and parents, he said, “The real truth is that the students of Tamil Nadu, especially those in rural areas from poorer, backward, most backward, and downtrodden backgrounds, have been affected a lot (because of NEET).”Pointing out that he found three things to be problematic about NEET, he said the first was that it was against States’ rights. He said everyone knows that education was in the State list until 1975 and it was moved to Concurrent List by the Union government. He, however, did not specifically mention that it was done by the Congress during the Emergency.The second issue, according to him, was that the exam was based on the idea of one nation, one curriculum and one exam, which he said was against the objective of education. He said that the curriculum should be according to the needs of each State. “Diversity is a strength, not a weakness,” he said and asked how it was fair for the students who studied under the State syllabus to take an exam based on the NCERT syllabus. “Imagine how difficult this is for rural students (for their aspiration) for medical education,” he said.He said the third issue was the irregularities reported in this year’s NEET, due to which people have lost credibility on the exam.Arguing that the permanent solution is to move education back to the State List, he suggested, “If there are any issues in making such a change, as an interim measure, an amendment to the Constitution should be made to create a Special Concurrent list, where education and health should be added”. He said it was the Union government that exercised full control over the subjects in the Concurrent List and there is a need to give full powers to the State governments on certain items.Interestingly, throughout his short speech, Vijay used “Ondriya (Union)” to refer to the Government of India, a term that has gained political significance after the present DMK government started using this instead of “Central government”, to underscore its ideological standpoint that India is a Union of States.
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