A student's life is said to be easy when in 10th or 12th grade, because after that, the real struggle starts. Struggle for what exactly? – to get a job or to get a high-paid job, to make our parents proud and return to them with a good score and a company. The answer to all these questions lives within the atmosphere of the entrance examination. From the Joint Entrance Exam ( JEE ) to the National Eligibility Entrance Test ( NEET ), and counting the other private college examinations too. But the struggle, the sacrifice, the coaching classes, sleepless nights, leading to a dream stitched together between a student and a parent.
It is very well said in the movie ‘3 Idiots’, “if you won’t run fast in comparison to other people, then they are going to beat you and move forward”. These lines seemed very normal when we were all kids, but today every student who sits for these exams can feel these lines, can feel the pain behind not clearing it and the pain behind when a person suicides from a building because he fails in these examinations.
In India, all the government examinations are held by the National Testing Agency, and among these exams, the exams that stand out are JEE and NEET. Lacs of students sit every year in the hope of clearing these examinations to get a good reputed government college, an IIT or a good medical college. But out of the lacs, only hundreds are qualified, but the hard work is done by every single student sitting in the exam. So, the question is – if the NTA and students know how important these exams are, then why is a re-appearance asked every year, especially NEET?
NEET is considered the biggest exam all across India to get admission to a very reputed and government institute in medical studies. Parents and students don’t prefer private colleges because, as the name suggests, “private” – they charge a lot of fees in their curriculum, which becomes very difficult for every parent to pay, and that is why every student runs in the line of clearing NEET.
Every year, the students are sent a long letter with an application form in which it is told to avoid any type of cheating and malpractices before, during, and after the examination, but the students keep on repeating it all again and every year, which leads to Re-study. Re-prepare and Re-appear.
NEET 2026 faced the same problem again. The exam held on May 12 2026, faced a problem when it was found out that the paper was leaked in many states of India. This came to light when the Rajasthan Police's Special Operations Group (SOG) found a guess paper which contained 140 similar questions that came in the real question paper. Investigations are still ongoing to find out how this paper was leaked and who leaked it.
And after all this news came onto the television, NTA cancelled the current exam as always and said to appear for a re-exam again to all the students, this time with utmost security and planning by NTA. The agency also assured the students that no new registration will be needed and no fees will be required to appear in the second re-examination.
But are the students really concerned about the registration forms and fees? Obviously not. This news has become very common news every time the NEET exam is held; every parent and student is used to it. Some students take this exam very seriously, and some get into the limelight of having the papers leaked. The re-examination is held after these types of malpractices because NTA is considered a very trustworthy agency in these exams, and to keep this trust going on, they have to make and be fair to every student appearing for this exam.
When some students take the help of leaked papers, it becomes unfair to the other half of students who have actually sacrificed everything for this one exam. Re-exams support this fair means of conducting. Currently, the dates of the re-exam are not announced, but what a student can do is to wait and check the NTA website for it.
Every parent and student, even the coaching classes, have become used to and tired of this happening every year, paper leaks in this part of the country, in that part of the country, etc. It sounds like a ritual that needs to be followed every year the NEET exam takes place, but this situation also makes NTA’s image go down.
It had become very important for the agency to become strict in conducting these exams, to make every student follow the rules and regulations of the exams, because
Sometimes strict actions lead to better achievement.
References:
- National Testing Agency
- Aaj Tak news channel
- The Times of India
- The Economic Times