Tamil Nadu: State favours 85% medical seat quota for State Board Students

Chennai: The state of Tamil Nadu has decided to reserve 85% of the MBBS and BDS seats for its state board students after assessing them in accordance with their National Eligibility Cum Entrance Test (NEET) 2017 scores. This shall be the government's posture if it fails to get an exemption from the Common Entrance test exam for the state.

Immediately after the NEET results were announced by the Central Board of Secondary Education(CBSE), on Friday, the Chief Secretary, Girija Vaidyanathan met with by the state health department officials, led by J. Radhakrishnan.

"Medical admissions in the state will be completely based on NEET rank. However, after surrendering 15% for all-India quota, we want to reserve 85% of the remaining seats for state board students," revealed a senior official.

3.46 lakh Tamil Nadu students from the Biology stream of class 12 that appeared for NEET were from the state board while a mere 4, 675 belonged to the CBSE stream.

"Of the 80,000 TN students who wrote NEET, at least 90% were from the state board. However, 50% of the questions asked in NEET were out-of-state syllabus for the state board students," the official said.

Medical Admission Counselling is supposed to begin from 17^th July and applications are likely to be on sale from Tuesday. The state has decided to want to retain 85% of the seats after the giving away of the 15% to the all India quota for the state board students.. It also plans to lower the percentage for the state board entrants gradually, after the school education department introduces a revised syllabus for the class XII students.

Legal experts are of the opinion that the state should notify its education policy before embarking on sale of prospectuses and application forms for medical and dental colleges.

This is for the first time that the state government will be supervising admissions in the 24 government medical colleges and an equal number of seats in private self financing institutions and universities (deemed).

The state of Tamil Nadu has been fighting tooth and nail against the introduction of NEET in the state by introducing two bills in the assembly. The President of India, however, is yet to give his assent.

The state selection committee, in-charge of all medical and dental admissions, has already submitted a draft of the prospectus , suggesting three alternatives, inclusive of admission based on class 12 marks and reservation for state students.

"We have also readied the option to do admissions completely based on NEET. It will be issued once the government makes a final decision," said Dr A Edwin Joe, Director, Medical Education to the TOI.

Counselling this year is likely to be a crowded affair with the selection committee might having to deploy additional staff to handle sessions for PG medical admissions alongside,UG counselling. This, with the Supreme Court asking for a recalibration of the merit list for PG admissions.

"We may have to repeat the entire PG counselling for government colleges, self-financing colleges and deemed universities. Almost simultaneously, we have to conduct counselling for undergrads," said a senior official.