For someone very vocal about social issues, I barely said anything about the CJP protest against NEET discrepancy.
Now that its over, as a teacher, here’s a perspective I’m sure you didn’t have.
The biggest reason I barely posted anything is that I was both for and against the protest.
For, because the demand for Dharmendra Pradhan’s resignation was legit.
Against, because the protest was in fact a politically charged attack against the BJP more than in favour of the education system. In fact, the understanding or respect towards academic sanctity was a big fat zero.
The education system, broken as it is, is held together by teachers and intermediary level educational administrators sandwiched between a system that won’t evolve, and a generation that has apparently evolved at the speed of light. Between the system’s traditional definition of merit and the modern students who don’t resonate with it. Between a system that imposes discipline and a generation that calls it oppressive.
Between the rapid commercialization and politicizing of education and the moral obligation to impart quality education.
Fighting for the education system is an impossible challenge that none of the activists would take up with the right intentions. Its not easy to understand the hurdles and problems of teachers and intermediary administrators who are obliged to help the students.
Its easy to rile up students, who don’t know that they need help, and bring them to the streets with a list of demands and a free pass to hurl abuses at the system.
What this protest achieved is
- the Education Minister’s resignation but not his accountability. He has stated in his resignation letter that he’s doing it to ‘stop the anti-national forces’, not necessarily because he was guilty of the NEET discrepancy.
- establishment of Abhijit Dipke’s image as the revolutionary Kejriwal of GenZ. Poor Mr. Wangchuk’s sacrificial embodiment of Anna Hazare gave Dipke the political mileage he wanted.
And as the storm has died out, an Education Minister has been replaced but the system remains as is. A bunch of FIRs have been filed, some public property destroyed, some social media mileage gained and Dipke’s political career established.
A pro-education protest would have included, or at least consulted academic experts, teachers, Ph.D scholars, meritorious students, educational entrepreneurs and administrators. There is good evidence to believe that the crowd at Jantar Mantar did not constitute even 20% of them. Please prove me wrong.
Other than a short-lived upper hand over the BJP, the protest achieved nothing for the education system. NEET process was fixed even before Dharmendra Pradhan’s resignation and the fast track court will perhaps roll a few bureaucratic heads. But you’re back to the same system that’s penalizing meritorious students and tiring out teachers.
Oh, and NO, the meritoriousness of the medical science field, which was the direct goal of the protest, is not protected either.
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