Yet to get reply from Centre on conducting own medical entrance exam: West Bengal education minister

KOLKATA : West Bengal Education Minister Bratya Basu on Saturday sought the scrapping of NEET, and demanded that the states be allowed to conduct their own entrance exams for medical courses as was the practice earlier. Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of the pre-counselling fair organised by the Association of Professional Academic Institutions, he said the irregularities in NEET have plunged the future of 23 lakh students into uncertainty.

Basu said his government has already written to the Centre regarding this but is yet to get a reply. "Before academic year 2016-17, medical entrance exams were conducted by West Bengal Joint Entrance Examinations Board in a transparent manner, and there used to be no controversy over it," he claimed. Basu alleged the Centre's attitude was against the federal structure of the country. "In a democracy, you cannot ignore the opinions of the state governments, you cannot disregard the states that are run by non-BJP governments," he said.

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Basu said the Centre's mishandling of the UGC-NET exam jeopardised the careers of lakhs of teaching job aspirants in higher educational institutions. On the pending students' union elections in colleges, he said, "We are positive about it. The process will begin after Durga Puja." While inaugurating the fair, Basu called upon students to take up whichever course he or she wanted. "With the emergence of digital media, a fourth industrial revolution has begun," he said. "A student can now choose topics in sync with current trends," he added.