India’s Students Want More Than Fair Exams

Exiting the NEET exam hall on May 3, Romil Jaiswal felt elated. “It was as if someone had lifted a stone from my head,” he told The Juggernaut. “And it went well.” In the preceding days, he had ignored the rumors that the questions had been leaked, partly because those kinds of rumors swirled around exam season every year. He knew better than to give into hearsay. But he also ignored it because he had to: he couldn’t afford the time to worry. 

Jaiswal is one of this year’s 2.2 million students who took India’s NEET exam, a cutthroat test that aspiring doctors must pass if they can’t attend an expensive private medical college, competing for roughly 130,000 spots. These test-takers represent only a fraction of India’s 370 million youth ages 15 to 29.

Yet, a leak of the May 3 NEET exam has led to a massive reckoning for India and its education system. Millions had their scores cancelled and had to take a retest. Several students died by suicide after saying they couldn’t face the pressure again. Protests erupted to demand the resignation of India’s education minister, Dharmendra Pradhan, who stepped down on July 25. But now, people are wondering: will something change at a deeper level? After all, about 40% of Indians ages 15-25 are jobless, even as Indians are more educated than ever before.