Heartburn at coaching centres as NEET lands in court

livemint.com:

New Delhi/Mumbai: Coaching centres that train millions of students for competitive exams expressed apprehensions over the latest national pre-medical entrance test after allegations of arbitrary grace marks and paper leaks, even as the government defended the testing authority and the conduct of exams. In an unusual development, a record 67 candidates shared the top rank in the latest National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) to select students for medical, dental and related courses. Six of them were from the same exam centre, sparking student protests and suspicions of leaked question papers.

The National Testing Agency (NTA), which conducts NEET, attributed the steep scores to curriculum changes and grace marks awarded for time lost at exam centres. On Thursday, the government informed the Supreme Court that it has decided to scrap grace marks given to 1,536 students and allow them to take a re-test. "No one won today, but this is a loss for the education system and a sad day...

The paper leak issue remains unresolved," said Alakh Pandey, CEO of edtech PhysicsWallah, who had petitioned the Supreme Court. On the edtech's YouTube channel, Pandey called for an investigation into the entire exam mark database. "There is a question of the right to equality.

Why allow a re-exam for just 1,563 students? What about other students who are not part of the petition, especially those in villages?," he added. Pandey's petition had claimed that the award of grace marks was "arbitrary." He said he had surveyed about 20,000 students, which showed about 70-80 marks were randomly awarded as grace marks to at least 1,500 students. The court closed the issue of grace marks in this petition but kept it pending to consider other