Rethink centralised education

The Supreme Court, on 6 June, mandated that the NEET-PG 2025 exam for permitting medical students to pursue postgraduate studies in surgery, medicine, or diploma should be held in a single shift on 3 August. The National Board of Examinations (NBE) in Medical Sciences had earlier planned to conduct the exam on 15 June before postponing it to a later date. The postponement was sought to arrange for more test centres and the required infrastructure. Giving such a weak excuse for mishandling such a prestigious entrance exam is indeed shameful and reflects poorly on the part of the NBE for not being able to judge the number of test centres or provide adequate infrastructure despite having over 10 years of experience.

The Supreme Court rightly rejected NBE’s plea to hold the exams on multiple dates and directed that the exam should be held on one date. Given the sordid track record in other professional exams of paper leakages and disparity in question papers, the Court disallowed the NBE from holding exams on different dates. The rationale of the judgement was that holding exams in two shifts leads to arbitrariness due to inevitable differences in question papers. Perfect equivalence in two papers is not possible, it said.

Applicants were again asked to register their centre preferences in a quixotic manner on a first-come-first-served basis. This is almost akin to getting coal mining licences on a first-come-first-served basis, leading to a host of problems between the ministry and unsuccessful applicants.

Given that there are an estimated 2.5 lakh medical students appearing for NEET-PG, the government needs to take the matter of examinations for postgraduate students with the seriousness it deserves. In spite of the National Board of Examinations in Medical Sciences being an autonomous body under the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare, some accountability is called for in the way examinations are conducted.

A broader issue is the government’s move to centralise every education course, be it in medicine, engineering, dentistry, or management. Centralisation of education rarely works. The aim is to bring about uniformity in the standard of education. The government needs to provide freedom to the various institutions to set their own standards and their own entry norms. Ultimately, it is not the government exams that count but the institution from which one has earned their postgraduate degree.

An IITian will be an IITian regardless of his entrance exam score, and an MBA from an IIM will always be preferred to others. Among them IIM-A may stand out as the most preferred. In the case of postgraduate screening of medical students, reputable colleges linked to hospitals will have their own ways of screening, which could well include clinical examination of real-life patients, merging theoretical knowledge with practical knowledge. In the case of management students, at entry level, equal importance is given to how a student performs in a discussion or interview, along with marks at graduation level. Work experience at any corporate firm is also taken into account when assessing the aspirant’s application. A 360-degree evaluation is a much better way of assessment than a mere three-hour online test.

One needs to look at how education is treated in other countries. In the US, education is not centralised. It is managed by different states and local bodies, although the federal government lays broad guidelines and provides funding. A student from Harvard or Wharton is recognised by the name of his institution.

In the UK too, graduating from Oxford or Cambridge is what matters. In Germany, education is also decentralised, with each ministry of the various states setting their own standards. Universities and colleges maintain autonomy in setting their own entry criteria, application deadlines, and other formalities. In Australia, a similar practice prevails. States set out their own guidelines.

All these countries take education seriously, which in turn also provides them with a significant source of foreign exchange from overseas students. The National Education Policy 2020, which delves into the history of gurukuls and how education was imparted, should also note that it was the guru who headed the school that really mattered. Until 1850, there were an estimated 7.32 lakh gurukuls, often looked upon today as institutes of higher learning.

The government needs to reconsider its centralised education policy, especially as education is a concurrent subject. At the very least, the autonomous bodies should be allowed to have their own standards and frame their own entry-level policies for postgraduation. To meet the growing demand from aspiring students wishing to pursue higher studies, it needs to ensure that more institutions are allowed to be built and to flourish.