A may 24 ordinance of the union government which granted aspiring medical students the option of exemption from NEET (National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test) — a common national exam for admission into undergraduate and postgrad medical and dental study programmes of all medical colleges countrywide — for one year (2016-17), came as a great relief to thousands of aspirant medicos in Tamil Nadu (pop.72 million), which had abolished entrance tests for professional education programmes in 2006.
However, some students who wrote NEET on July 24 this year and qualified for admission into Tamil Nadu’s 13 private medical colleges and ten deemed (private) universities, are unhappy with their admission processes. This is because the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE), which conducted the country’s first-ever NEET and announced the results on August 16, hasn’t released a ranked list which would enable students to enter colleges of their choice. Moreover, they are particularly peeved by a circular issued on September 15 by the University Grants Commission (UGC) which asks deemed universities to publish their own merit lists based on the NEET scores of applicants. Parents and students believe this is a loophole for unscrupulous private college/varsity managements to favour students willing to pay outlawed capitation fees.
After the historic Supreme Court judgement of April 11 which abolished all other entrance exams and mandated NEET as the sole entrance exam for admission into all medical colleges countrywide, the common practice of college/varsity managements demanding — and getting — sky-high capitation fees (upfront lump sums) for favoured admissions under the management quota of seats, has become redundant. With effect from July/August 2017, NEET scores in order of merit will become the sole criterion for admission into the country’s 174 government and 212 private medical colleges/universities with all discretionary quotas abolished.
This has prompted private medical education institutions in Tamil Nadu to substantially increase their tuition fees since the capitation fees window has been closed. For instance, the annual tuition fee of the Chennai-based SRM Medical College, affiliated with the SRM University, has zoomed from Rs.10 lakh per year to Rs.21 lakh. In other private medical colleges across Tamil Nadu, annual tuition fees range from Rs.12-19 lakh effective this year.
Quite obviously, private college managements in Tamil Nadu who were hitherto obliged to admit 45 percent of their annual intake of students on the basis of their scores/grades in the class XII school exams at government prescribed tuition fees and allowed to admit the remaining 55 percent at their discretion under the ‘management quota’ on payment of high capitation fees, have factored capitation fees into determining the now common tuition fees. In effect, this means high tuition fees for all without management quota students subsidising government recommended students.
“If the Union government is sincere about making medical education affordable, it should have constituted a tariff committee of eminent professionals to determine common tuition fees chargeable by different categories of institutions providing medical education. Without a proper system in place, the objectives of NEET will remain unfulfilled,” warns senior surgeon Dr. L.P. Thangavelu, founder-promoter of the PPG Group of Institutions, Coimbatore, and member of the Medical Council of India and Tamil Nadu Medical Council.
The steep hike in the price of medical education is certain to force the state government to establish a Fees Determination Committee for professional education as recommended by the Supreme Court in the Islamic Academy Case (2003) which ‘modified’ the landmark judgement of the apex court in the T.M.A. Pai Foundation Case (2002). The latter verdict upheld the fundamental right of citizens to pursue the ‘occupation’ of providing private professional education and levy “reasonable” tuition fees.
Now the likelihood is that a Fees Determination Committee headed by a retired court judge will be established to calibrate tuition fees chargeable by every private medical college in the state. Lawyers won’t complain.
Hemalatha Raghupathi (Chennai)