50,000 NEET aspirants vs a handful of JEE candidates—our career tunnel vision needs to change
Congratulations to all those who qualified for National Eligibility Cum Entrance Test (NEET). For those who couldn’t make it, have patience; this world is full of opportunities. NEET is not the end but merely the beginning of your competitive exam journey. Glorifying a single profession like medicine may harm us in the long run.
The NEET results, declared recently, reveal a stark reality: only a small percentage of aspirants will secure seats in government medical colleges (GMCs), especially across the ten GMCs of Jammu and Kashmir. For Open Merit students, the competition is daunting, as the new reservation policy has made it challenging for them to secure seats in GMCs. Last year, the Open Merit cutoff for NEET UG reached skyrocketing levels. The rest will either drop a year to prepare again, seek opportunities abroad—especially in countries like Bangladesh, Iran, Georgia, and Kazakhstan—or explore alternative paths. This raises a critical question: Is pursuing MBBS the only secure career option after Class 12 in Kashmir, especially when students invest up to six years to achieve it?
Having taught at various educational institutions, I’ve observed that around 70 per cent of students aspire to pursue MBBS, while fewer than one per cent aim for engineering at premier institutions like the IITs. A small percentage wants to pursue agriculture and allied courses. This raises another critical question: Why aren’t our students aiming for premier institutes like IIT, IIM, IISER, or IISc? It is disheartening that our representation in these institutions remains almost negligible, despite the availability of numerous seats.
Recently, entire Kashmir was celebrating success of three girls who aced JEE advanced, imagine if half percentage out 50,000 who appeared for neet ug start preparing for JEE then our percentage would have gone upto three digits in JEE advanced, to send more Kashmiris to IIT, mass awareness at school level from class 8 onwards, motivating more students to opt for maths after 10 is the way to increase our representation at IITs.
On the other hand, JKBOPEE recently conducted the Common Entrance Test (CET), where 1,600 candidates appeared for approximately 3,500 engineering seats in both government and private colleges. This raises an alarming concern: the number of students opting for mathematics after Class 10 is at a record low, which could lead to a crisis in the coming years. This trend will also result in decreased enrollment in engineering colleges, posing yet another challenge.
Based on my analysis, the MBBS field in Jammu and Kashmir will face significant saturation within the next five years. Currently, there are 1,400 medical seats, with approximately 450 more expected to be added in the coming years across the seven GMCs. Additionally, 50 seats will be added at Shri Mata Vaishno Devi (SMVD) in Katra (private) and 100 at Kashmir Medical School (KMS) in Sempora (private), bringing the total to around 2,200. When including Foreign Medical Graduates (FMGs), the number of medical graduates could reach nearly 4,200 annually. However, these 4,200 graduates will compete for just 300 postgraduate (PG) seats in J&K, of which only 100 are in core branches, leading to unprecedented saturation. This imbalance will intensify competition and challenge the notion that MBBS guarantees a stable career.
Kashmir does not need only doctors; our society needs skilled engineers from IITs, agriculturists, researchers, economists, and professionals from diverse fields. We must change our mindset, treat all professions with equal respect, and encourage students to pursue careers based on their interests and strengths.
The writer is an Agricultural Facilitator at KKG Trehgam, Sub-Division Agriculture Office
Aadil M. khan
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