New Delhi: Students appearing for JEE and NEET examinations see no end to their tensions, caused first by the Covi-19 pandemic wreaking havoc on their future plans, coupled with the constant fear of getting infected while appearing for entrance examinations. Students as well as parents have multiple concerns related to proximity or otherwise of the examination centre, adequate adherence to standard operating procedures (SOPs), and the fate of students who might get infected during the examination.
The Supreme Court recently refused to defer the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) and JEE (Main) examinations.
Gaurav Vats, a student from Sonipat who successfully passed CBSE Class 12 examinations this year with 93.8%, told The Sunday Guardian that even after precautionary measures were announced before conducting the BEd entrance examination in Agra, a surge of 38 fresh cases were reported after 20,000 students appeared for the examination.
On 22 July, five of more than 88,000 students, who took up the Kerala Engineering Architecture Medical (KEAM) examination, tested positive for Covid-19. “Looking at how poorly SOPs are being implemented in all examination centres, postponement would have been better,” said Aditi Yadav, a 97% scorer from Ghaziabad, who has been taking coaching for JEE.
This year, the JEE Mains admit card includes an advisory and certain instructions, like carrying a transparent ballpoint pen, additional photographs, personal hand sanitizer and transparent water bottle, which were earlier provided at the examination centre. Besides the advisory, the admit card also has a self-declaration form, asking for the student’s travel history, symptoms of Covid-19 if any or if the student had come into possible contact with any Covid-19 positive patient in the last 14 days.
Speaking to The Sunday Guardian, Saumya Srivastava from Delhi who scored 93.6% in Class 12 board examinations said: “If a student gets Covid, not only the student, but his or her family will also suffer the consequences. Also, there is no official notice on retest or rescheduling for those students who will have missed their examinations because of Covid.” She believes that uncertainty around the examination dates has made preparation amid this pandemic stressful and frustrating at times.
Private colleges like VIT and SRM have cancelled their entrance examinations and are considering scores in Class 12 for admission to the new academic year. Other colleges that are taking online entrance examinations have no assurance of this being foolproof.
“The lockdown came suddenly and we had to come back home from Kota. Here, at my home in Bihar, it took a long while to get back to our regular routine. A lot of disturbance was also because we didn’t have a teacher to clear our doubts,” said Shiwani Madhesia, who has been preparing for NEET.
Rashika Kumari, a medical aspirant hailing from Siwan in Bihar told this correspondent: “I had to come home due to the pandemic and amidst this, I lost one of my family members. The situation was very gloomy for me. Also, I live in a joint family and there is never a conducive environment to study.” For students whose examination centre is in the vicinity of their locality, it’s a sign of great relief and for the others, this is a cause for major concern.
A petition was filed by Advocate Alakh Alok Srivastava on behalf of 11 students from 11 states on 6 August arguing that the decision to hold JEE through online mode and the NEET through offline mode in centres across India was a sore violation of the fundamental right to life of lakhs of affected students. The petitioner has said: “The Prime Minister has said a vaccine is on the way. Let us wait for that…” The court responded to this on 18 August by pointing out that the question of a vaccine’s likeliness should be left to the experts and the court had no intention of entering that domain.