WHY POSTPONE JEE & NEET EXAMS 2020? (EXAM V/S LIVES)

WHY POSTPONE JEE & NEET EXAMS 2020? (EXAM V/S LIVES)

ABHISHEK SHARMA

Greetings, friends!

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Exams and career Vs your lives Which one do you feel is more important?

I feel that most of the people would say that our lives are obviously more important The exams will come and go, but life is more important than anything else

But both our government as well as the Supreme Court are of the opinion that exams are more importantas compared to lives.

WHY POSTPONE EXAMS

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JEE is the biggest engineering exam of the country, in which more than 11 lakh students will appear this time It is scheduled between 1st to 6th September

NEET is the biggest medical exam of the country, in which more than 17 lakh students will appear this time It is scheduled on the 13th of September

With regard to these exams, lakhs of students and their parents. approached the government and requested it to postpone the exams as it would pose a great risk to the lives of the students and that it would not be safe to conduct them this time. But the government did not listen to them.

Thereafter, they approached the Supreme Court which concluded the hearing in less than 5 minutes and ruled that life must progress normally. The exams should be held irrespective of the ongoing COVID19 pandemic , While delivering the judgement through BLOG conferencing, Justice Arun Mishra said that life has to go on and since the precious year of the students cannot be wasted, hence they would still conduct these exams.

Which, in my opinion, is an extremely terrible decision and I will tell you the reasons why it is so First of all, India has become the third worst country in the world with respect to total number of COVID19 cases Everyday, more than 60,000 new cases are being reported in the country.

COMEDK EXAMS

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EVERYDAY! Imagine when lakhs of these students would go to different exam centres and would interact with one another and come in close proximity with one another, how fast COVID19 would spread further One great example of this is the USA, where the schools had been reopened two weeks back

and 97,000 students tested positive for COVID 19.

One might argue that this is not that dangerous for the students, which is true COVID19 does not affect young people as much Not a lot of symptoms is visible and neither is it that dangerous for them But think about it-

When young people get infected and return to their homes, they would infect the people there Most of the Indian people live in joint families where their grandparents live as well And they are extremely vulnerable as they are elderly And all of these students that are asymptomatic and are not as dangerously affected by the disease, will become asymptomatic carriers and upon interacting with their families will infect the rest of the elderly people in their family and it might become fatal for them Countries like America are slightly better off because they do not live in joint families.

This is the reason why numerous families might not even permit their child to sit for the examinations They would tell their children to sit at home because they would not want to put their families at risk This would then become a disadvantage for such students Some families that are not well to do would think that the career of their child is very important to run their household and they would forcefully send their child to appear for the exams while putting their health at risk.

And this risk would increase even more if anyone in the family is already suffering from a previous health issue Some would argue that there is nothing to worry about as all the SOPs would be followed There is nothing to be afraid of and there would be no transmission of the virus Everything would be sanitized properly and that everyone would use hand sanitizers And everyone would wear masks and maintain social distancing So then there is nothing to worry about as the virus would not spread I'd just like to show these photos to the people who think this way These are the photos of the exam COMEDK that were held in Karnataka You can see the crowd outside the exam centre and you can see the social distancing maintained and the SOP that have been followed.

UGC V/S STATES

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The same situation happened in the KEAM exam that was conducted in Kerala and with the UGEE in Uttar Pradesh and there are several examples of such exams that were held in the last few weeks The same situation prevailed in every case The SOP was not followed properly in several exam centres which proves that it is impossible to manage all the exam centres properly and the chances of the transmission of the virus are extremely high COVID19 is not the sole reason why these exams should be postponed Situations in Bihar, Assam and the other North eastern states today are in a poor shape due to floods These are some photos that one of you sent me on Instagram to show what conditions prevail in his house You can see what the conditions in his house are How can anyone study or travel to their exam centres in such a situation? What will these students do? There are so many people affected by these floods How will they travel to their exam centres to appear for their exams? Thirdly- How will the candidates in the rest of country travel to their exam centres? The regular passenger services of the trains still lie suspended Trains are not running as per their normal schedule. The local trains in Mumbai are running only for essential services in today's time.

So, if transportation lies in such a shoddy state, how do you expect the students to travel when they have been assigned exam centres that are 100-200 kilometres away? The trains are not running! Or are you going to arrange a private jet for them?

How else would it become possible? This, again, is something that affects the poor people more A similar situation has been created between the UGC(University Grants Commission) and the states UGC has said that all the universities in the country should conduct their exams before the 30th of September

That is, this central authority is forcing all the states to conduct the exams Which, again, is a problem due to similar reasons

Compared to other countries like USA and Germany, the governments have said that they would consider on a region by region basis

to see which regions are safe enough to conduct exams and to reopen schools and this is how it is being done.

WHAT IS THE SOLUTION?

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And this decision making authority is being granted on a regional basis Because, obviously, some regions have more casesIn Germany, it has been declared that it is okay to conduct exams in some states while it is declared not okay in other states

while in some regions, situations are under control So, this should be done in consideration of that as compared to a decision by a central decision making authority that declares what should be done in the entire country Now, you could ask what could be the solution for this? For how long should the exams be postponed? I admit that this is not an easy decision for the government and the Supreme Court to make Because no one knows when the situation would improve or when the vaccine would be inventeD and for how many more months the situation of COVID19 would remain as grim? But the government and the Supreme court can atleast listen to what the students have to say and understand their problems which they did not do this time

Because it is very clear that the exams can atleast be postponed until the next year because the admissions to a lot of colleges are anyway not going to commence before the next year So, what is the logic behind getting the exams conducted for this? I know that the Supreme Court has already given its judgement but

the decision making power is still in the hands of the government So, I'd say that you should share this BLOG with more and more people

And as you raise your voice, threaten them that you will not vote for them the next time Because these politicians only pay heed when they are threatened in the name of votes If all these 28 lakh people start saying on Twitter that they will not vote for them the next time

if the exams are not postponed.

Then these politicians might finally pay heed because they do not care about your problems It is all politics and a voting game for all of them This might be the last resort for them to hear you and postpone the exams finally I hope that you consider this issue that I have raised in the BLOG very important.

THANK YOU !