22/06/2026
Watching the heartbreaking scenes from the recent NEET examination has been deeply upsetting.
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Imagine preparing for years, sacrificing your childhood, your sleep, your happiness, and sometimes even your family's financial stability for one dream. Many students come from farming families, daily-wage households, and middle-class homes where parents take loans, make sacrifices, and put every bit of hope into their children's education.
Then imagine reaching the exam centre just a few minutes late - one minute, three minutes, five minutes - and being denied entry completely.
Yes, discipline matters. Yes, students should try their best to reach on time. But life is not always under our control. Traffic jams, roadblocks, vehicle breakdowns, accidents, weather conditions, unexpected delays, or even large public gatherings can affect anyone. Before judging these students, we should put ourselves in their shoes.
Many people sitting comfortably behind screens are quick to say, "Rules are rules" or "They should have been more disciplined." But do we really know what happened on that particular day? Do we know the struggles they faced to even reach that examination centre?
An exam is not just an exam. For many students, it represents years of hard work, family sacrifices, and dreams of a better future.
If a student arrives a few minutes late, why not allow them to enter without granting any extra time? Let them write the exam for the remaining duration. They should not receive any additional advantage, but they should at least be given a chance to fight for the future they worked so hard for.
Sometimes, enforcing a rule without considering humanity can cause irreversible damage. The tears of students, the pain of parents, and the shattered dreams of families are not things that can simply be ignored.
A nation should value discipline, but it should also value compassion. Rules are important, but so are people.
As a citizen, seeing young students and their families break down over a delay of a few minutes is truly heartbreaking. We need a system that balances fairness with humanity, because behind every candidate is a story, a family, and a dream.