Students oppose Indian government’s new university entrance exam
By
Yuvan Darwin and Arun Kumar
11 October 2017
Tamil Nadu students are continuing to protest against the Indian government’s so-called National Eligibility and Entrance Test (NEET), which is now the mandatory entrance qualification for admission to university medical science courses.
On October 2, police blocked a march from Tiruchi’s main post office by students demanding the abolition of NEET. The students were wearing masks with a photo of Anitha Shanmugam, a 17-year-old student who committed suicide early last month after her hopes of entering medical college were dashed.
Shanmugam was from an impoverished family in the state’s Ariyalur district. She was prevented from enrolling in a state medical college because she failed the NEET, despite scoring 1,176 out of 1,200 in the Tamil Nadu university entrance examination. The daughter of a daily wage labourer, she was the only student in Ariyalur district to score 100 percent in physics and mathematics in the state’s 12th standard examination and prior to NEET would have been the first person in her village to become a medical student.
Shanmugam’s suicide on September 1 triggered student protests throughout the state demanding NEET’s withdrawal. College students demonstrated in marches and rallies in the state capital Chennai and other Tamil Nadu towns such as Coimbatore, Tiruvallore, Kanchipuram, Villupuram, Cuddalore, Tiruchi and Thanjavur, and were later joined by secondary school students. The protesters denounced the central government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the All India Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK)-led state government, blaming them for Shanmugam’s tragic death.
The AIADMK state government…