Parents in Haryana oppose student's promotion

Haryana seems to have become the first State in the country where parents are expressing displeasure when their children are promoted to higher classes.

Strange as it many sound but witnessing the poor academic performance and low learning ability of their children, the parents in Haryana are now requesting the teachers not to pass their wards in primary classes.

The poor education system in Haryana is now forcing the parents to come up such requests.According to the State Education Department officials, more than 25,000 such requests have been received from the parents from across the State, mainly from rural areas and most of the parents say that their children don’t have class-appropriate competence and are not fit to be promoted.

An internal survey recently conducted by the Education Department has also revealed that a majority of Class VI students in Government schools are not able to comprehend textbooks meant for students of Class II. likewise, students of Class III could not read a text meant for Class I.Also, as per the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER 2014) released earlier this year, only 36.5 per cent students enrolled in Standard (Std) III in Government schools could read at least a Std I level text. Similarly, 53.9 per cent children enrolled in Class  V in Government schools could read a Class   II level text.

Shockingly, only 48.7 per cent in Class V could read English words while 50 per cent in Class V could not read English sentences. In case of children in Class III who can do atleast subtraction, there were only 24 per cent in Government schools in 2014.The report had also revealed that Haryana is among the top five States in the country for having high enrolment rates in the private schools at the elementary stage and people prefer the private schools over the Government schools.

Not only this, the State had witnessed worst ever HBSE results for Class X and XII this year registering pass percentage of only 41.28 per cent and 53.96 per cent respectively.To arrest the declining level of education, Chief Minister Manohar lal had recently issued directions to follow systematic and timely assessment of learning levels of the students.

After the dismal results, the State Government has announced to abolish semester system from Classes IX to XII from next year in all schools. While the semester system has already been abolished in IX and XI from the current year, it will be discontinued in Classes X and XII during next academic session 2016-17.

A senior official of Education Department said “There is a need to amend the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act of 2009.”He said that there should be re-introduction of fail or pass system, and not giving compulsory promotion to every student till the age of 14. Only those students should be promoted from Class 8 who have attained certain quantum of knowledge, he added.

To improve the education system of Haryana, State Education Minister Ram Bilas Sharma has announced that the Education Department would conduct monthly test from Class I to VIII and semester system would not be followed in these classes.And, to ensure students attendance in the schools, the State Government has decided that the names of those students who remain absent from the schools for seven working days consecutively, would be struck off from the admission register of the school.

A serious view has been taken of the students who remain absent during monthly tests. And, it has been decided that the students who remain absent during monthly tests would not be entitled to the benefit of scholarship or incentives being provided by the Department with effect from the date of test which they fail to take.