Editorial 1 : Injurious to health
Introduction: Being young is not easy. Academic and peer pressure apart, the rabbit hole of algorithm-determined content can lead one down to one’s deepest insecurities. Sensing the mental health impact of social media on adolescents, US surgeon General Vivek Murthy called the Social Media companies to put warning labels on social media.
Impact of social media on young minds
- In 2019, the World Health Organisation warned of a global mental-health crisis, affecting nearly one billion individuals, including 14 per cent of adolescents.
- Studies have established a correlation between social-media usage and the possibility of mental-health afflictions.
- In the US, for instance, adolescents who use social media for more than three hours a day have double the risk of anxiety and depression.
- Without any curbs, the social-media crisis is poised to escalate.
- As the world’s second-largest smartphone market with a high internet penetration, it is especially true for the Indian landscape, where there is a sizeable demographic under the age of 18.
What will putting label on social media achieve?
- Putting warning labels could only serve as the first step towards addressing what is, in essence, a global crisis.
- More needs to be done to protect the young from online abuse, harassment and exposure to inappropriate content.
Case study: Impact of warning labels on Cigarette consumptions
- A warning has its utility, though.
- In 1975, nearly a decade after the Federal Cigarette Labelling and Advertising Act came into force in the US, the Indira Gandhi government passed a legislation called The Cigarettes (Regulations of Production, Supply and Distribution) Act, 1975, which made statutory health warnings on all tobacco products mandatory.
- What it managed to create was better awareness among users, and, over time, better hygiene.
Why legislation on big social media firms is necessary?
- For the young, however, a warning can sometimes act as an invitation.
- It also runs the risk of putting the onus of protecting the children entirely on parents.
- In an opinion piece in The New York Times, Murthy writes, “These harms are not a failure of willpower and parenting; they are the consequence of unleashing powerful technology without adequate safety measures, transparency or accountability.”
- For parents, the difficulty of social media is two-pronged, beginning with the digital gap of a large section with the sophistication of these platforms and extending to the impracticality of keeping a constant tab on their children’s online activities.
- It makes legislation that is binding on Big Tech, similar to the Digital Service Act introduced by the European Union in February this year, an urgent requirement.
- It is only a combination of warning, legislation that bars targeted advertising or collecting sensitive data, and parental guidance that can protect the young and the vulnerable from the pernicious fallouts of social media.
Conclusion: Studies have established a correlation between social-media usage and the possibility of mental-health afflictions. Putting warning labels on social media could be a first step towards regulating the addiction from overuse of these sites on young minds, which is slowly becoming a pandemic of epic scale.
Editorial 2 : The big test
Introduction: The nationwide anger over the NEET exam has not subsided. Meanwhile, the government has cancelled the NET examination conducted by NTA, compounding doubts about its institutional integrity. What is important to understand is that cheating or fraud in NEET or NET and other such highly competitive examinations is only a consequence of bad policy.
The experiment with NEET
- NEET policy considered in 2010 to address three problems:
- Standardising educational competence at the entry level.
- Reducing the number of entrance examinations.
- Eliminating capitation fees levied by private medical colleges.
- "One exam NEET policy" attempted in 2013, stalled by Supreme Court due to centralisation concerns.
- Policy restored in 2016 by a five-judge bench.
What were the Challenges in Implementation of NEET exam?
- Diverse educational standards in India.
- Central government schools follow CBSE syllabus.
- States have their own, less difficult syllabi.
- High-end private schools often follow International Baccalaureate (IB).
- Bias towards CBSE, forcing state students to seek additional coaching.
- The immediate implication has been that students passing the state examinations are forced to undertake additional coaching, resulting in the mushrooming of a Rs 58,000 crore coaching industry growing at 15 per cent per year.
How did the Coaching Industry flourish?
- Poor governance in school system.
- Lackadaisical approaches, syllabus tinkering, rote learning focus.
- Poor quality of teaching, large vacancies, inadequate infrastructure.
- Even high-end public schools only marginally better.
- Emergence of ghost classes with coaching prioritised over school attendance.
NTA and Policy Centralisation
- Since its establishment, the NTA has been ridden with complaints of irregularities, demonstrating its inadequate capacity to conduct complex and important examinations.
- Of concern is that both the ministries of education and health have virtually abdicated their responsibility to redress the adverse consequences of the policy of centralisation.
Opposition from Tamil Nadu
- Tamil Nadu has always been opposed to the NEET exam as it was against their perfectly functioning state policy of linking medical college admissions to high school performance.
- In 2021, Tamil Nadu constituted an Expert Committee headed by Justice A K Rajan.
- The Rajan Committee brought out startling evidence, showing how rural students from Tamil medium schools lost out heavily in clearing the NEET — between 2017-21, from an average of 15 per cent admissions of Tamil-medium students, the number had fallen to 1.6-3.2 per cent.
- Likewise, the number of rural students admitted to government medical colleges fell from 62 per cent to 50 per cent.
- Clearly, NEET disadvantaged rural and poorer students.
- Tamil Nadu was particularly affected as its sound public health system rested on students from rural backgrounds willing to work in primary health centres without ambitions of migrating abroad unlike their counterparts — the rich, affluent upper-middle-class, urban-bred students aspiring for careers in corporate hospitals and going abroad.
- The state government made several requests to the Ministry of Health to review the NEET policy and even had their legislature pass a law scrapping the need to pass NEET for entry into medical colleges.
- This never got cleared due to the stubbornness of the Governor acting without jurisdiction.
Recommendations for Policy Revamp
- The NEET policy needs a revamp based on inputs from all stakeholders, going beyond the polarised politics of today.
- Perhaps an all-party committee like the JPC would be able to harmonise local realities and varied levels of educational standards across states.
- Ideas for consideration could range-
- from making the MBBS degree for six years with a pre-medical one year to bring students to “standard” in critical subjects of Zoology, Chemistry and Physics as was the case during the 60s and 70s;
- decentralising the examination to states and universities as it was during pre-NEET times;
- constituting regional boards or centralising only the qualifying examination for practising outside the state or going abroad and so on.
The NEET crisis is symptomatic of a failed state of high-quality education in India
- Like in most countries, standardised schooling of good quality enables admission to colleges based on marks obtained in the school final examination.
- But in India, since standards are so varied and quality not assured, examinations for most professional courses are centralised.
- Due to the tough competition, committing irregularities for monetary gains becomes a great incentive.
Conclusion: Recent controversy of entrance exams runs deeper than it seems; coaching industry, issues with standardisation and institutional irregularities play a part. The long-term solution is improving schooling quality, decentralising examinations, and institutionalising strict oversight and governance to restore confidence and credibility. Till that is done, the leakage of papers will continue to plague us.