FOR more than four years, Sanna, 20, had the same daily routine — wake up at dawn, study up to 14 hours a day, eat and sleep — all in an effort to crack a tough exam to get into one of India's premier public medical colleges.
But after two unsuccessful attempts, she has lost hope she could win a spot, especially after the national entrance exam was hit last month by allegations of irregularities, including paper leaks.
"I have zero confidence in this system. What is the point of slogging when others can get ahead by unfair means?" Sanna said by phone from the western state of Rajasthan.
Instead, Sanna wants to study in China, Russia or Kazakhstan, increasingly popular destinations for Indian students struggling with the high costs of prepping for exams and tuition.
Exam leaks are common in India, where millions scramble to get into top government colleges to secure degrees that can line them up for well-paying, stable jobs in a country grappling with an employment crisis.
Sanna was among 2.4 million people who took the National Eligibility Cum-Entrance-Test (Undergraduate), or NEET-UG, the only gateway for admissions into undergraduate medical courses, in May, competing for more than 100,000 spots in government and private colleges.
An unusually high number of students scored a perfect 720 score in the exam, sparking concerns of possible cheating, and irregularities in conducting and grading the test.
Student groups have staged protests, launched social media campaigns and have gone to courts to demand investigations and a re-test.
The National Testing Agency said there were isolated cases of cheating, but has denied paper leaks and said "the integrity of the examination was not compromised". The increase in top scorers reflected a rise in the overall number of test candidates, it said.
Despite decades of rapid economic growth, India has been slow to reform its higher education system.
"This system is completely flawed," said Anita Rampal, a former dean at Delhi University.
"It takes so much out of you in terms of your motivation, effort, money, family resources, your sense of being."
Students can shell out large sums of money to attend test-prep centres and pay for course material. But only a fraction get into public colleges.
Of the total seats for medical students, about 60,000 are at state-run institutes, with the rest at private ones. Students race to government colleges for their affordable fees.
Top scorers in the test win placement at public colleges, where a five-year medical course can cost between 200,000 and one million rupees (US$12,000). Private college tuition can cost more than 10 times that.
In 2022, more than 750,000 Indians went abroad to study, almost double the number in 2018, according to federal data.
Academic counselling websites estimate about 25,000 students leave every year to study medi-cine in Russia, China, the Philippines, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan.
Gagan Arora, a 23-year-old from Rajasthan studying at Asfendiyarov Kazakh National Medical University in Almaty, Kazakhstan, said his five-year course cost less than five million rupees (US$60,000), including lodging and meals.
But drawbacks include language barriers in classes and a lack of hands-on learning, which is a major focus in Indian medical training.
Arora worries that gaps in his education will make it difficult to clear India's mandatory screening test, the Foreign Medical Graduates Exam, which allows them to practice in the country.
Similar issues were echoed by four other Indian medical students: one in Kazakhstan, Georgia and two in Kyrgyzstan.
About 80 per cent who take the FMGE fail, according to government data.
Students, teachers and health experts called on the government to open more medical colleges.
Making medical seats more accessible, including to rural and low-income Indians, would break barriers that hinder equal access to medical education, Oommen C. Kurian, a senior fellow at the Observer Research Foundation think tank, wrote in a research article in January.
Others, including Rampal, urged an overhaul of the test to prevent malpractice, and regulation of the fees.
"We cannot push these issues under the carpet anymore. We must start afresh."
The writer is from Reuters
The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect those of the New Straits Times