After the Delhi Government’s move to introduce the Bill to scrap the ‘no detention’ clause (Chapter IV, section 16) of the Right to Education (RTE) Act (2009) in November, 2015, it is now, the Ministry of Human Resource Development, which is rethinking the clause. This was made evident in the draft National Education Policy (NEP) 2016 which has suggested a review of the no detention policy (NDP). Although the NDP will be retained up to Class V, but it is the upper primary students who will no longer be covered by the policy.
It is argued that the NDP has seriously affected the academic performance of the students by making the teaching and learning processes inconsequential and has adversely affected the quality of school education. The clause, one of the most progressive clauses of the RTE Act (2009) was introduced along with the Continuous and Comprehensive Evaluation System (CCE) which brought radical exam reforms in the school system. The aim was to facilitate holistic development of children.
The major setback to these reforms has come in terms of poor ground level implementation of these policies. Both the NDP and the CCE are based on a broader meaning of education, the inability of these policies to assess the prevailing social practices in the school system posing systemic bottlenecks in implementation, calls for a review of these polices.
One of the systemic bottlenecks is in the mindset of the major stakeholders. Students, parents and teachers, traditionally have placed a lot of thrust on the results of school exam. While getting good marks has been the pursuit of a few students, a majority of students, especially in the Government schools, gets their fate decided on the basis of being ‘pass’ or ‘fail’. There are a number of factors that pull these students out of the school. Failing a grade is socially, economically and psychologically costly and one of the most compelling reasons. The flip side is, threatened by results, students and parents are incentivised to put in efforts to ensure that students do well.
Schools, in general and teachers, in particular are also historically and socially conditioned to incentivise learning in the class using the threat of exams and results. While it is often argued that with the introduction of the NDP and the CCE, students have become carefree and non-serious, we argue that it is the misinterpretation of the NDP and the CCE as ‘automatic promotion’ and ‘casual assessment’ policies, respectively that has resulted in the failure of these policies.
There is a need for a radical change in the attitude towards the concept of ‘no detention’. The policy makers should explore a possibility where promotion can be granted to students on the basis of attaining pass grades in minimum number of subjects if not all. The draft NEP, 2016 also prescribes multiple chances of grade improvement through re-tests.
Alternatively, it can be proposed that, a student not performing well in say either Mathematics or English in Class VI, be made to repeat only that subject for another year, while being promoted to Class VII. Offering multiple courses in different subject with varying difficulty levels and pedagogical approaches that correspond to different levels of proficiency attained by students could be a long term measure adopted.
Some may say that six years is not an adequate period to gauge the effectiveness of a policy, it is important to recognise that the NDP in its current state is creating a learning vacuum. Rethinking the NDP is a welcome step, criticising it because of its poor implementation will imply a myopic policy vision.
The writer is Anamika Srivastava, assistant director, Centre for Social & Education Policy,Jindal Global law School