Opinion Asking exam candidates to remove innerwear to check cheating shows abysmal level of trust in the young
To humiliate students for an article of clothing — or, as the “rules” would have it, “any ornaments/ metallic items” — is unconscionable and symptomatic of a deep suspicion of aspirants on the part of the NTA.
The local police has filed an FIR in the matter and the NTA has sent a team to Kerala to conduct its own investigation. The offending officials must be brought to book. 
There is no justification for the alleged actions of officials under the National Testing Agency (NTA) at an examination centre in Kollam, Kerala. On Thursday, according to an FIR filed by a parent, several young women were forced to remove their innerwear by officials as they sought to appear for the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET) for admissions to MBBS and BDS programmes. The current episode is not the first such instance: In 2017, “overzealous” teachers at a Kerala school were suspended for asking a girl to remove her innerwear before entering a NEET exam centre.
To humiliate students for an article of clothing — or, as the “rules” would have it, “any ornaments/ metallic items” — is unconscionable and symptomatic of a deep suspicion of aspirants on the part of the NTA. How can an earring, or a hook on an item of clothing lead to cheating? And exactly how many candidates smugged cheat sheets in these wires? Yet, the NTA’s list of prohibited items — which includes shoes, jewellery and all metallic objects — only empowers the person on the ground to police the bodies of aspirants. Bureaucratic “rules” too must aspire to common sense. As a governance reform in the healthcare and education sector, the NEET has much to recommend it. Like the Joint Entrance Exam for engineering, the NEET has the potential to ensure uniformity in admission standards across states and objectivity and transparency in candidate selection. What is common here is an assumption of guilt — of “cheating” — and the impunity arising from the vaguely-worded rules used to humiliate students.
The local police has filed an FIR in the matter and the NTA has sent a team to Kerala to conduct its own investigation. The offending officials must be brought to book. But a wider conversation on reforming the guidelines and powers of the NTA is also needed. The guiding principle of such reform must place the dignity of students and aspirants front and centre; it must ease their burdens while ensuring that exams are conducted fairly. Mechanisms must be put in place to ensure that those conducting tests — whether NEET, JEE or any other such examination — are sensitised to their role as enablers for the youth, who are already under tremendous pressure. To strip-search a candidate to protect a test means there’s something terribly wrong with the test — not the candidate.
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