Button up under NEET's dress code

The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) has, yet again, issued a list of Dos and Don'ts for the National Eligiblity cum Entrance Exam (NEET) scheduled on May 6th. Under these rules, the candidates not only have to adhere to a dress code but also they are prohibited from entering examination centres with pens and pencils.

The medical aspirants can only wear light-coloured clothes with half sleeves, without big buttons, brooches/badges, flowers, etc. with either salwars or trousers. Both male and female candidates are prohibited from wearing shoes – only low-heeled slippers and sandals will be allowed inside examination centres. There is no mention or exception made to candidates wearing skull caps, scarves, burqas or turban.

Candidates wearing religious garments, such as the burqa, are asked to report at the centers at least an hour before the reporting time.

Candidates are not allowed to carry any stationary, communication device, metallic implement or even a water bottle. Board officials say that they will be provided with everything at the centres. "All these are precautionary measures following the Supreme Court's 2015 directions to prevent any unlawful activity during exams. These are also followed in the Joint Entrance Exam (JEE) for engineering," a senior official said.

CBSE received huge criticism after it issued similar guidelines for NEET last year. Several cases of students not being allowed into centers as they were wearing full sleeves, shoes and head scarves were reported.

NEET past

Last year, the board was left red-faced when a female student was asked to remove her bra by an invigilator in Kerala after a metal detector beeped during security check.