Gaurav Gogoi slams NEET controversy, demands for overhaul of education system to curb coaching centre dominance

Gaurav Gogoi, Deputy Leader of the Indian National Congress in the Lok Sabha and a three-time Member of Parliament from Assam, has taken to social media to voice his concerns over the ongoing NEET (National Eligibility cum Entrance Test) controversy. He posted on X (formerly Twitter) "A big learning from the ongoing NEET ordeal is that we need to go back to the basics. The breakdown in the primary education system has increased the dependency on coaching classes. The failure of public education at large forces lakhs of parents to shell out money for coaching centers."

He emphasized the growing trend where students rely heavily on coaching classes due to inadequacies in the primary education system.

Gogoi pointed out that the current education framework, which gives major importance to entrance exams over school-level assessments, has inadvertently empowered coaching centers. "Moreover, the lack of weightage given to school-level exams in favour of entrance tests increases the power and incentives for coaching centres. Students often enroll in ‘dummy’ schools affiliated to coaching centres to give their board exams without ever setting foot in the school. Meanwhile, the public education system continues to underperform and underserve students," he stated.

The Congress leader's remarks come at a time when the NEET exam has been mired in controversies, with allegations of mismanagement and unfair practices affecting thousands of aspiring medical students. Gogoi attributed these issues to systemic failures and criticized the government's New Education Policy (NEP), which was launched four years ago, for not addressing the core problems.

"Four years since its launch, this government’s much-touted New Education Policy has done nothing substantial to address this glaring problem. There is an urgent need for a complete overhaul of the system. Only then can we decisively break the coaching centre cartel and prevent NEET-like fiascos in the future," Gogoi concluded in his post.