NEET controversy: Education reforms need to tackle the ‘how’, not just ‘what’ and ‘why’

The NEET controversy has many facets to it. But most worrying for the long term is that the idea was born out of a 'reform process' and still fell victim to the very inefficiencies it sought to correct.

So, what went wrong? The answer points to a deeper systemic malaise, where reform as a policy buzzword has become a career essential in government, but the execution of which remains below par. This problem will keep surfacing because most reforms India needs now are structural and systemic.

NEET was projected as a reform measure against all that ails admissions into medical and engineering colleges. It was to reduce the stress burden on students struggling with multiple exams, marginalise coaching institutions, remove arbitrariness in admissions and broadly standardise the entire system through a single test.

There was no disagreement with the need for reform. In fact, the 'what' and 'why' of education reforms have never been a point of major discord. But the way the current crisis has unfolded has brought home the point that much more attention will need to be given to the 'how' of reforms.

National Testing Agency (NTA), at the heart of this reform process and now of the controversy, conveys a serious gap between conceptualisation and execution.

Doubts have arisen on whether this entire effort has inadvertently strengthened the coaching economy rather than marginalise it. Student suicides continue because of pressure of tests, raising questions on whether a single test has ended up increasing stress levels because of lack of other options, than reducing it. And there's the issue of whether the problems of higher education are infecting the school system by making board exams redundant from an admissions point of view.

These questions are now a subject of serious evaluation, largely because the execution plan was not thought through threadbare - be it from a larger standpoint of how a failure could impact students, to the basics of developing a foolproof logistics plan on carrying out a nationwide test.

The federal buy-in into any structural reform is vital. And this crisis has underlined it even more strongly. Many states had reservations with NEET. They even adopted legal recourse, and continue to oppose it, as is the case in Tamil Nadu. This apprehension could extend to the National Education Policy (NEP) as well if conversations are not conducted and flexibilities not worked out in consultation.

Many states have their own exam-conducting agencies, which precede NTA in conducting common entrance tests. Any reform on the assessment side of the education sector should logically have made them stakeholders in the process. Instead, they were deemed subsumed.

As a result, stakes of state governments in higher education get reduced. While some states like Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and perhaps Maharashtra will resent this, given their investment in this sector, others could end up just confining themselves to school education. Either outcome isn't desirable.

There is a valid argument that political interests are involved in many private engineering and medical colleges. This clouds the sanctity of the admissions process in many institutions. These are real challenges, which need to be addressed through practical reforms in partnership with states, however difficult and complex the process may be.

This principle holds true across all sectors, barring perhaps national security and related areas. A lot can be achieved through the persuasive powers of the Centre. And this also has to do with the fact that structural reforms take into account the diversity of impact on states differently.

In the instant case, it appears neither the concerns nor the expertise available with states were fully understood or explored, resulting in efforts to undermine and illegally profit from the new exam, just as it was done earlier. The tragedy with NEET is that its distinction from the old system has now blurred, if not vanished, due to poor execution.

The final point on reform that this controversy has brought to light is the need for multiple interlocutors with the Opposition. Just like the federal buy-in, building stakeholders within Parliament helps avert a crisis, which can impact any new policy initiative. Going ahead, this will be a critical piece of the reforms jigsaw. Otherwise, derailment may loom large at every step.

GoI will need to open channels with non-NDA parties to ensure that reforms can proceed with some give and take. In other words, some amount of cross-party political solidarity will be important to ensure a reform initiative doesn't fall victim to vested interests.

The NEET controversy has also highlighted the requirement of derisking admission tests. It cannot be that if one test comes under the cloud, then there's no other backup for students. Reform initiatives in sensitive, critical sectors like education need to be injected in a manner that students are insulated from any potential failure.

One can argue that multiple tests provided that option in the past. Maybe better models are available now. But the bottom line is that the sensitivity of the sector involved - of students - needs to be understood to the last detail. Because consequences of a failure are disastrous. The problem with the NEET crisis is just that - the end is just not in sight.