Congress leader Jairam Ramesh on Monday targeted the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) and said that it was “no longer a professional institution” but a political tool for the ruling party.
Ramesh, who serves as the Congress’ General Secretary overseeing Communications, made these remarks following the National Testing Agency attributing responsibility to NCERT for the “grace marks” controversy during the 2024 National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET) exams for medical college admissions.
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He slammed the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT), accusing it of being more aligned with the RSS since 2014 rather than functioning as a professional institution.
“However, it is true that the NCERT is no longer a professional institution. It has been functioning as an RSS affiliate since 2014. It has just been revealed that its revised Class XI political science textbook criticises the idea of secularism as well as what it considers policies of political parties in this regard,” he said in a post on X.
The Congress Rajya Sabha MP said, “NCERT’s objective is to produce textbooks, not political pamphlets and propaganda NCERT is mounting an assault on our country’s Constitution in whose Preamble secularism features explicitly as a foundational pillar of the Indian republic. Various Supreme Court judgments have clearly held secularism to be an essential part of the basic structure of the Constitution.”
Furthermore, the MP ridiculed NCERT, remarking “needs to remind itself that it the National Council for Educational Research and Training, not the Nagpur or Narendra Council for Educational Research and Training,” adding that,”All of its textbooks are now of dubious quality vastly different from those that shaped me in school,” he said.
On Sunday, the Congress leader raised concerns about the fairness and transparency of NEET.He mentioned that when he was on the Parliament’s Health and Family Welfare Standing Committee from 2014 to 2019, there was widespread support for NEET. However, some MPs, especially from Tamil Nadu, were worried it could disadvantage students from schools not affiliated with CBSE.
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Ramesh called for a thorough examination to determine if NEET is unfair and if students from poorer backgrounds are being denied opportunities. He also pointed out issues with the NTA’s integrity and how NEET is organized and managed. He hopes the new Parliamentary Standing Committees will prioritize a comprehensive review of NEET, NTA, and NCERT.
Meanwhile, students across the country have protested problems related to the 2024 NEET-UG exam, such as alleged paper leaks and the granting of ‘grace marks’. The NTA announced that the scorecards of 1,563 candidates who received ‘grace marks’ will be cancelled. These candidates will have a chance to retake the exam on June 23, and the results are expected by June 30.
Several petitions have been filed in the Supreme Court requesting the cancellation of NEET-UG 2024 results and a fresh examination due to allegations of paper leakage and misconduct during the May 5 exam.