CPI (M) demands Union Education Minister Pradhan's resignation over NEET irregularities
Jun 23, 2024
New Delhi [India], June 23 : The CPI (M) on Sunday demanded the resignation of Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan over the allegation of irregularities and paper leaks in the NEET-UG 2024 examination. The party also called for the scrapping of the "centralised" NEET exams.
"The Polit Bureau of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) is deeply anguished over the sinister developments which have engulfed the centralised all-India examination processes. Be it NEET-UG, UGC-NET and now NEET-PG which has been postponed indefinitely in anticipation of what obviously was waiting to happen. The combined impact of this are irregularities and complete collapse of the processes which affect vital sectors of higher education in the country," the party said in a statement.
The statement said that the irregularities are not merely the result of corruption but also emerged from "centralisation, commercialisation and communalisation in the education sphere and which is an essential ingredient of the National Education Policy".
"The new government summoning the services of the CBI to investigate these scams confirms its approach to whitewash, like it did with the Vyapam scam. These reflect the complete collapse of the policy prescriptions in higher education for which the entire government is accountable, particularly the Education Minister. He must resign," the statement said.
"The CPI(M)Polit Bureau demands that in a country as big and as diverse as India, the centralisation of the governance of higher education should be reversed, and the first step should be to scrap the centralised NEET exams. Every state should be allowed its own separate procedures for conducting admission tests to regulate entry into professional educational institutions," the statement added.
Notably, the Centre on Saturday removed National Testing Agency (NTA) Director General Subodh Kumar Singh from his post and put him on "compulsory wait" in the Department of Personnel and Training. This comes amidst a growing controversy over alleged irregularities in the conduct of exams.
