CBSE's NEET 2017 results once again in question

The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) had recently released the results of the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) 2017(undergraduate course) which was conducted on May 7^th of this year. NEET 2017 is the gateway to offer admissions to deserving applicants in MBBS and BDS courses at the best colleges of India. More than 11 lakh of students had appeared for this entrance exam.

NEET has been conducted to streamline the admission process for medical seats. There is a provision given to the students to check their answers as CBSE uploads the answer key after the exam. Students can check and challenge for a particular question which they think they are correct at but wrongly marked by CBSE. This year CBSE declared the result on June 24 and the result has been challenged by several students claiming that CBSE had failed to identify and mark the correct answers in the answer key issued by it for the examination. Answers to four questions—Question No. 58 (Biology), 68 (Biology), 105 (Chemistry) and 140 (Physics) are said to have been wrongly mentioned in the answer key.  Delhi High Court has directed the CBSE to file, in a sealed cover, a report on the correctness of the answers of two questions challenged by one of the petitioners and gave 8^th August as a next date to hear on this issue.

Multiple petitions in this regard have been filed in the Delhi High Court, challenging the CBSE’s results and demanding to declare the result as “Invalid”. The main reason behind this thought was the response to the petition filed by one of the student in Delhi high court by CBSE.

On July 3 rd, they (CBSE) responded that the petitioner’s result declared on 23 June 2017 was as per the revised answer key and not as per the one previously uploaded.  But the revised answer key has, however, been uploaded on the website of the Department on July 2 evening only. Petitioner's parents questioned the entire NEET results with a thought that, "If the CBSE now changes the answer key on which the students were evaluated after declaring the results, shouldn't students again be given a window to challenge any discrepancies, if any, in their marks as per the new answer key uploaded? This will change the entire result and the ranking of many students."

The thought of revised answer key getting published on a later date and the board failed to open its doors for any discrepancies in any student's results gave a room for many students and parents to feel that this new answer key uploaded by the board could alter the results and ranks of many students.  After all, a small upward or downward change in ranks can either make or destroy the dream of a student getting admission to the best educational institutes.

As it happens in most of the situations like this, the senior officials like Rama Sharma, CBSE’s PRO, and Dr Sanyam Bharadwaj, Officer on Special Duty, NEET still mum at this moment for clarification on the NEET results and the CBSE’s reaction to the story. Just hope that whatever would be the action taken, it should benefit students and helps them to achieve their dreams!!!