Anti-NEET Bill or no Bill, entrance exam here to stay: TN Governor Ravi

In yet another instance of ruffling the feathers of state government the wrong way, Tamil Nadu Governor RN Ravi on Saturday (August 12) categorically asserted that he will never clear the Tamil Nadu government's anti-NEET bill, even as it was now awaiting Presidential assent.

The achievements without the National Entrance-cum-Eligibility Test (NEET) were not enough for the future, Ravi said. The qualifying test is here to stay, he added. “Look, I will be the last man to give clearance; never, ever. I do not want my children to feel intellectually disabled. I want our children to compete and be the best. They have proved it,” the Governor said.

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His categorical statement came during an interaction with top NEET scorers in UG-2023 at the Raj Bhavan in Chennai when a parent sought for the Governor's “clearance to ban NEET”, an obvious reference to his assent to the TN Assembly bill seeking exemption for the state from the ambit of the central exam. “I am telling you very frankly, I will never give clearance to NEET (bill), let it be very clear. Anyway it has gone to the President because it is a subject of Concurrent List, it is a subject which only the President is competent to give clearance to,” Ravi added.

A myth was being propagated that only those utilising the services of coaching centres could clear the medical entrance examination, he said, even as he asserted that CBSE syllabus was the “standard”. “Whatever is there in the CBSE book, nothing beyond is needed. Many students, I have seen cleared it, cleared it well without going to coaching institutions. The book they have prescribed – the CBSE book – that is a standard. If the standard is lower than that, don't blame that standard. Try to raise the standard,” he said.

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Averring that the CBSE standard is “very good syllabus and NEET is not beyond that”, the Governor further said, “Let there not be any confusion, NEET is going to stay in the country. I want my children to be competitive, to be the best in the country.”

The state Assembly had last year once again adopted a bill seeking exemption for Tamil Nadu from NEET, after Ravi returned it earlier.

(With agency inputs)