Students’ forums in Coimbatore protest NEET, NEP

COIMBATORE:

Students

’ outfits in Coimbatore on Tuesday staged demonstrations against the National Education Policy (

NEP

) and the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET).

Members of the Democratic Youth Federation of India (DYFI) staged a protest at the south taluk office in the city in the morning. K S Kanagaraj, district secretary of the

DYFI

, said they were opposing the NEET and the NEP. They were demanding that education be brought under the state list from the concurrent list.

“As education is on the concurrent list now, the Centre is pushing for entrance tests such as the NEET. If it is on the state list, states could decide on how to admit students to higher education, based on the situation prevailing in respective states,” he said.

He also said the NEP undermined state’s rights. “If the policy is implemented, there will be common entrance exams for both engineering and arts and science courses. It also says it will introduce cluster schools in 10km radius, while now we have government schools in 3km radius in rural areas. So would these schools be shut down?” he said.

Later in the day, members of the Students’ Federation of India (SFI) staged another demonstration in front of the district collectorate condemning the manhandling of SFI state representatives who protested the NEET in Chennai on Sunday. They demanded that the NEET be revoked and students be admitted to MBBS based on their Class XII board exam marks, as before.
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