Addressing The Concerns With NEET
What is the issue?
National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) is distressing rural students with medical aspirations, the test needs a reform.
What is the basis of NEET?
- NEET is based on a core curriculum approach, whereby the syllabi of all the school boards have been taken into consideration.
- It has been prepared by the CBSE, Council of Boards of School Education,National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) and adopted by the Medical Council of India.
What are the issues with Indian education system?
- India doesn’t have a common core curriculum, there are 50 different boards.
- There are wide variations with regard to curriculum design, curriculum transaction and curriculum evaluation among these boards.
- No significant efforts had been taken so far to bring some sort of uniformity in these curriculums.
- Only few state boards have prepared their content in tune with the curriculum of national boards, particularly in science subjects, but many of them have not fallen in line.
What are the issues with NEET?
- There are allegations that NEET is infringing upon the state governments’ power to hold admissions in the medical colleges funded by them.
- Students from some of the state boards are at a disadvantage from progressive boards.
- Students in rural India and those studying in state government-run schools seem to have a lesser chance of success.
- These examinations do not test the attitude and aptitude of the students correctly.
- There is more concentration of students from national boards clearing the exam.
- At present a candidate can claim domicile in more than one state, which makes the admission process lengthy and allows scope for malpractices.
What can be done?
- It is the best “coached”, not the best “talent”, who cracks such a type of exam, Central and state governments must provide best in class coaching for such exams.
- Typology of the questions and design of the question paper must be changed to improve the situation.
- Upper age limit may be fixed to ensure the quality of future doctors.
- Uniform domicile rule needs to be adopted so that candidate must claim seat only in his/her state, this will maintain state autonomy.
- Vacant seats can be filled later through a central counselling such that all the candidates are allotted seats as per their merit.
Scope For Further Rate Cut
What is the issue?
Union government is expecting for a further rate cut from RBI
What is the status of Indian economy?
- The basis of inflation remaining under 4 per cent in the medium term.
- Retail inflation rose to a five-month high of 3.36 per cent due to costlier vegetables and fruits.
- The consumer price index (CPI) based inflation was 2.36 per cent.
- Gross domestic product (GDP) growth for the April-June quarter fell to 5.7 per cent from 7.9 per cent.
- This is the lowest since 2014, India has now lagged China in growth for the second consecutive quarter.
- The economic slowdown is due to demonetization and destocking by companies before the goods and services tax (GST) roll-out.
What are significant rate cut moves by RBI?
- The RBI reduced the repo rate by 0.25 per cent to 6 per cent in August, citing reduction in inflation risks.
- The rate cut was the first in 10 months and brought policy rates to a near 7-year low.
- RBI maintained a “neutral” outlook, citing uncertainties in inflation trajectory,there is scope for monetary easing because of inflation projections.
What is the need for further rate cut?
- There is a demand for reviving the economy, boosting exports, spurring investments, and creating jobs for the millions entering the workforce.
- But there is a slowdown in the manufacturing sector is due to various reasons.
- Manufacturing sector is seriously affected due to appreciation of currency, lower interest rates needed to boost manufacturing.
- Till the impact of demonetisation and GST wearing off RBI and central government need to make decisions in favour of manufacturing sector.
Regulating Private Hospitals
Why in news?
India's drug pricing authority, National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA), has stressed the need for better regulation of the country's massive private healthcare industry.
What is the need?
- Pricing - NPPA has made significant reduction in prices of knee implants and cardiac stents in the recent months.
- This is to cut the cost of procedures such as angioplasty and knee surgery and make it more affordable.
- However, several hospitals have hiked prices of related services which are an essential part of such surgeries like doctors' fees and hospital stay costs.
- This is done primarily to make up for the cost of price caps imposed by NPPA, defeating the very purpose of the price control measures.
- Healthcare - India spends roughly 1% of its GDP on healthcare which is among the lowest in the world.
- This has resulted in a broken public healthcare system that few trust and nearly 70% of healthcare delivery being in the hands of private players.
- On the other hand, the efforts to make healthcare accessible and affordable are hampered by the tactics of unregulated private hospitals.
What should be done?
- The regulator thus calls for a better oversight of private hospitals as there is no legal framework at present to regulate hospital charges.
- Private hospitals should be regulated to make the billing process more transparent.
- The health ministry could also look at standardising the cost of certain treatments, so that the prices don't vary across hospitals.
- Instead of privatisation of healthcare services, which even NITI Aayog has suggested, improvements in the public health infrastructure could prove to be more inclusive.
Author : Shankar IAS Academy, Chennai.
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