Student leaders arrested in Vijayawada during protest over NEET fiasco
The Hindu
Leaders of student unions staged a protest, alleging irregularities in several competitive examinations conducted
Leaders of student unions staged a protest, alleging irregularities in several competitive examinations conducted by the National Testing Agency (NTA) and demanded immediate action against those responsible for it.
In response to a bandh call given at the national-level, leaders of the Andhra Pradesh units of All-India Student Federation (AISF), Student Federation of India (SFI), Progressive Democratic Student Union (PDSU), All-India Students Association (AISA) and Congress party’s student wing National Students’ Union of India (NSUI) staged a demonstration near P. B. Siddhartha College of Arts and Sciences at Mogulrajpuram on July 4 (Thursday).
They demanded that a comprehensive probe be done into the NEET paper leak and the ‘inefficient’ National Testing Agency (NTA) which had conducted the entrance test be dissolved. They also demanded that Union Minister for Education Dharmendra Pradhan step down immediately, owning responsibility for the NEET fiasco.
The police took them into custody and shifted them to Machavaram police station.
Taking strong exception to the arrest of student leaders, AISF State president V. Johnson Babu and SFI State secretary A. Ashok said the future of lakhs of students across the country was at stake, but the government had done nothing to instil confidence in them. They said it was shameful that no action had been initiated against the NTA, despite the country witnessing 65 incidents of paper leaks in the last five years.
They alleged that the Centre was out to ruin the entire examination system in the name of ‘one nation one examination’ policy, which was nothing but a ploy to allow privatisation of the education system. They demanded immediate steps for decentralisation of entrance tests.
After irregularities surfaced in NEET and the PhD entrance NET, NTA Director General Subodh Singh was removed last week and a high-level committee headed by former Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) chief R. Radhakrishna has been constituted to ensure smooth, transparent and fair conduct of exams through the NTA.