Chennai: The Tamilnadu government has informed the Centre that it is in favour of conducting Class 12 board exams after the decline of Covid-19 cases. However, it has opposed NEET for admission to medical courses.
The State government on Sunday informed the Union government at a high level meeting chaired by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and Education Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank’ on conducting Class 12 exams and entrance examinations for professional courses.
Reiterating the State government’s position on the issue during a virtual meeting of State Education Ministers organised by the Union Human Resource Development Ministry on Sunday, Higher Education Minister K Ponmudi affirmed that NEET was not needed for Tamilnadu.
The meeting was organised to discuss the conduct of final exams for CBSE Class 12 exams amid the Covid crisis.
Taking exception to a few media reports suggesting that TN would conduct NEET on its own, an official statement from the State clarified that the statement of the Higher Education Minister has been misconstrued and misreported that the State would conduct NEET at the State level.
“It is completely wrong. There is no change in the policy of the state government that medical admissions should be done only on the basis of the marks secured in the final exams conducted for Class 12 students in Tamil Nadu and not through NEET,” it said.
Ponmudi, who also participated in the meeting, said his department had asked the union government to conduct NEET only for centrally funded medical colleges.