DailyPost 2824
SC DIRECTED COMPREHENSIVE DATA FORENSIC AUDIT
The whole mess that has been created in and around the NEET 2024 scandal, will keep on getting messier with every passing day. It will become more and more complex and intractable with every new case, revelation and even a narrative, connecting available data in the public domain, keeps getting woven. Important time is being lost, and this procrastination by the National Testing Agency, NTA, and the government will lead us nowhere. They have to come clean. Twenty four lakh candidates and in a way the whole nation is being kept on tenterhooks. Competitive exams which are the key kernel of our educational system are blown to smithereens by this scandal.
It is the job of the autonomous agency which is mandated to the accountable, leave aside being transparent, to clear the muck that it has created. That cannot happen with incoherent press briefings and media notes. One to one issue / fact based dialogue can be the beginning. With the current positioning NTA will not be able to clear the air, but conversely it is making the problem more confounded. There is no denying the fact that the communication channels between students and all on their behalf and the NTA is not smooth, to say the least. It is infuriating them further and that too at the most critical juncture of their life. It is very difficult to understand whether the NTA and government realise what they are dealing with; missing the woods for the trees.
All the questions and much more can be answered by the exam and candidate data available with the NTA. It is being dished need based – depending on the quantum of pressure exerted and sufficient enough to escape. This approach is self-defeating both for them and for the country. The question arises whose data is it anyway? For whom is the data being used? The owners of the data are the students. The data currently has to be used to the benefit of the students, when it is needed the most. We have just been through the Digital Personal Data Protection Act 2023 and as per the Minister, the regulations are underway. When all students need the data; the owners of it, for cumulative benefit, can it be kept out of their purview?
Whatever the NTA and powers that be think, they cannot be allowed to perpetuate the rot. Without loss of time, there is a need for data analytics and data forensics audit. This would connect all the dots: it will give all the connects, the timelines, discrepancies, and can be mapped to the rules, regulations and the process. Comparisons in the current exam and also across earlier NEET exams, to have a clear idea of range of marks, and also many other reference points. The scope is broadly known, but it needs to be consented upon by all stakeholders and be brought down into a concise scope of work document. Cue for the right data analytics and data forensics tools should be taken from experts, competent enough to be used as evidence, in the court. Last but not the least, the tech audit will have to be supervised by an expert panel, bringing the right blend of expertise of areas needed for this purpose, with the courage and grit, which is generally missing, but essentially needed for a task of this nature.
DATA ANALYTICS AND DATA FORENSICS WILL PREDOMINANTLY CLEAR THE NEET 2024 SCANDAL SMOKESCREEN.
Sanjay Sahay
Have a nice evening.