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Written by Arun Janaradhanan | Chennai |
November 20, 2020 8:22:10 am
A Gomathi, 19, was amongst 227 authorities college college students of Tamil Nadu chosen for medical admission within the state on the primary day of counselling on Wednesday, thanks to 7.5 per cent reservation launched by the state solely for presidency college college students who clear the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET).
Gomathi’s wrestle—“A day in the life of A Gomathi, an aspiring medical student from Tamil Nadu state board”—was printed first in The Indian Express in July 2018. It was a time the state was witness to heated debates and protests, adopted by suicides of a number of Tamil college students from ecomically poor background who didn’t clear NEET regardless of getting excessive marks in Class XII.
After the report on her wrestle within the face of a centralised examination for medical admission, DMK chief M Ok Stalin had met Gomathi and handed over a cheque for her schooling.
“Why not provide us equal opportunity before forcing us to compete with CBSE, ICSE students? If the Prime Minister came, I would tell him, ‘I will prove myself, but give us equal education before you make us write a common exam’,” Gomathi had stated in 2018, after she didn’t clear NEET even after topping her college in Class XII Board exams.
Even as a number of suicides of medical aspirants shook the state within the final three years, Gomathi didn’t let the “unfair” examination system kill her spirit. She labored laborious – 20 hours each day, finding out textbooks – as her mother and father, day by day wage labourers, struggled to run the household.
On Thursday, she was at Stanley Medical College in Chennai along with her father R Anbazhagan, who used to work as a cleaner at a TV showroom. “I should thank everyone. I was ranked 21st, and managed to get into Stanley Medical College. Even if there was no reservation (7.5 per cent) for government school students, I would have got in, but in a college away from Chennai,” Gomathi instructed The Indian Express.
She stated she didn’t take teaching and studied on her personal. For Anbazhagan, together with his month-to-month wage of Rs 7,500, it was not possible to gather Rs 45,000 required for NEET teaching for his daughter.
Gomathi’s grandfather, Virugambakkam Aranganathan, was one of many first protestors who immolated himself within the anti-Hindi agitation in Tamil Nadu in 1965. In his reminiscence, a busy subway lane in Chennai’s Saidapet is named Aranganathan Subway.
Gomathi comes from a Dalit household and lives in a 400-sq-ft, two-room home that has a big portrait of B R Ambedkar, a marriage reward for her mother and father.
On Thursday, Tamil Nadu’s School Education Minister, Ok A Sengottaiyan, stated that in search of everlasting exemption for the state from NEET is a coverage determination of the state authorities, and Chief Minister Edappadi Ok Palaniswami is taking constant efforts to realize this.
In the continued counselling, many college students from weaker sections – like Gomathi – benefited from the state’s coverage to implement 7.5 per cent reservation for presidency college college students. The state had taken an govt route after a Bill was unanimously handed within the Assembly however was pending for the Governor’s assent for over a month.
© The Indian Express (P) Ltd
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