‘No exam’ is as bad as ‘too many exams’
The Union Ministry of Human Resource Development will do well to ‘re-think’ the provision of automatic promotions till Class VIII under the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Act, 2009, as recently recommended by a parliamentary standing committee. On Thursday, the panel tabled a report in Parliament that expressed serious concerns about falling academic standards under the RTE regime and effectively said that either the current system of guaranteed promotion be abolished or modified so as not to adversely affect students' cognitive skills. The way things stand now, students are often not motivated enough to study hard, as they know they will not be held back even if they fall behind in class. Add to this the fact that a vast majority of students who fall under this system are from the economically weaker sections of society who attend Government-run schools and do not always have the support base needed to push them through the system, and it becomes amply clear why the parliamentary committee has red-flagged the guaranteed promotion rule. The rule has already come under scathing criticism from teachers and parents alike who worry that too many students are not taking their studies seriously because they believe that the Government will pass them to the next class anyway. Moreover, when these students come up to Class IX and take the first result-oriented examination of their life, they often find themselves woefully unprepared. From the teachers' perspective too, the system is problematic, as there are no definite ways of assessing a student's progress. This, in turn, also dampens the teacher's motivation. The RTE Act allows for a process of ‘continuous and comprehensive evaluation', but does not codify it. Consequently, most schools have either almost no assessment processes or the systems that are in place are symbolic. The results are out for everyone to see. Several studies conducted by both public and private agencies have found that learning outcomes in Government schools have been on a precipitous decline in the past three years that the RTE has been in effect.
However, while there is no doubt that the current policy of guaranteed promotions needs to be revised, it is important to acknowledge and preserve the essentially pro-student spirit. let us not forget the policy was designed to address pervasive complaints of increasing academic pressure. Primary school children were seen lugging around trolley-backpacks and there was a spurt in student suicides during the examination season.There was widespread criticism that a national obsession with test scores dampened student creativity and did not allow for well-rounded development. While the no-exam policy doesn't resolve any of these concerns, it still does give students some breathing space. Any new system that comes into place must take into account this factor. Education is a multi-faceted venture and test scores alone cannot judge a child's development.