I stand with them: Greta Thunberg on demand to defer JEE, NEET

Guwahati: Climate activist and global icon Greta Thunberg has put forward her views behind the nationwide campaign to postpone JEE and NEET exams in India. Taking to Twitter, Thunberg said that conducting exams amid the COVID-19 pandemic and the extreme floods was “deeply unfair” for students.

She wrote, “It’s deeply unfair that students of India are asked to sit national exams during the Covid-19 pandemic and while millions have also been impacted by the extreme floods. I stand with their call to #PostponeJEE_NEETinCOVID” This was the time when “#MODIJI_POSTPONEJEENEET” was already trending.

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The demand to cancel the competitive entrance exams for medical and IIT has already been gaining momentum across India. India is in the third most worst affected country due to the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic. To top that, many states in the country, including Assam, Bihar, Gujarat, Chhattisgarh, Kerala, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Uttar Pradesh, and West Bengal, are also reeling under a wave of floods.

Many students, parents, and some professors are highlighting this fact as a reason to halt the entrance exams. Various political spokespersons and parties have also backed the demand stating that this was not only “unsafe” due to the novel coronavirus but also “unjust” keeping in view the rampant floods and its subsequent devastation.

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Union HRD minister and senior Congress leader Kapil Sibal stated that such an approach towards education was “elitist.”

The HRD ministry, on the other hand, has maintained that it will not postpone the NEET and JEE exams. They are both scheduled to take place in the first half of September. The exams were first canceled in May. Many petitions were also dismissed by the Supreme Court stating that “life cannot be stopped.”

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