The Odisha RtE Forum on Wednesday opposed the Centre’s move to scrap the No-Detention Policy in schools for students of Class V and VII.
It may be noted that the Central Cabinet has already taken a decision to scrap the policy by introducing a bill in the Parliament and introduce a Detention Policy for students of the two classes.
Now, students are promoted automatically till class VIII. But, as per the Cabinet decision, the weak students would be tested twice, at Class V and at Class VIII for promotion. The student who would fail in the March examination would be given another chance in May. If a student doesn’t pass, he would be detained in the same class.
Mentioning it as a most regressive step, forum convenor Anil Pradhan lamented that nobody has conducted any study to see the impact of No-Detention policy in schools whereas the Continuous Comprehensive Assessment (CCA) has been followed in letter and spirit.
The CCA is a child friendly assessment process of assessing the competency of children in different point of time of the year in comprehensive manner instead of half-yearly and yearly examinations.
He said the CCA is based on the principle that if children are not learning it is not their fault, rather the fault lies with somewhere else such as teachers, school environment, curriculum, textbooks and teaching learning process.
He also pointed out that if the examination system would be introduced, more children would be pushed out of the schools and drop-out rate would increase, which is against the spirit of the Right to Education (RTE) Act.
In view of this, Odisha RTE Forum would like to submit a charter of demand to Government in support of the No Detention Policy.
Utlkal University Psychology Department’s former Professor Udayan Nath Das said CCA includes assessment of learning, assessment for learning and assessment as learning but the traditional learning does not have this process. A study by the Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Ahmadabad in the recent days says that criticism of no-fail policy in schools has little empirical evidence. As analysis of learning survey data shows that the automatic promotion of children between Classes I to VIII did not harm learning.
The policy was not framed to promote learning but to ensure that children who are likely to drop-out stay back in school, said Disha Nawani of the Centre for Education, Tata Institute of Social Sciences.
later, a team of members submitted a memorandum to Rajya Sabha member and HRD Standing Committee member Anubhav Mohanty in this regard.