Scrapping of no-detention policy is a step in the right direction. Focus must now be on quality
The Union Government’s decision to remove the ‘no-detention’ policy till class VIII of the Right To Education (RTE) Act is a step in the right direction. The RTE Act was a badly planned piece of legislation in the first place and focussed on quantity and not quality. The negative impact of the Act has made a mockery of the Indian primary education system, which, coupled with a wholly inadequate secondary and tertiary education system, has been producing millions of young unemployable people every year. Delhi Education Minister, Manish Sisodia, rightly pointed out that this aspect of the RTE Act that it was not encouraging children to study as they knew they would progress. Statistics from schools in the capital city released by Sisodia, and likely mirrored across the country, showed that many children in Class IX could not pass tests that a Class VI child should have been proficient in. The dropout and failure rate for Class IX children is the result of the ‘no-detention’ policy that was shot through the roof. While some activists have decried the move of the Union Government, the fact that it has been welcomed by almost every Opposition-ruled State highlights how rotten the education system had become. The RTE Act by its design and implementation seemed less like a piece of legislation designed to educate India and more like one to hold the nation back by producing a nation of technically illiterate idiots. There is no doubt that India faces a massive challenge in educating its young people. As Prime Minister Narendra Modi keeps reminding Indians and also people across the world at every available forum that India is a ‘young nation’ and will have a demographic dividend, one must not forget that masses of unemployed youth, because of a lack of proper education, will make each of these individuals a ticking timebomb. This was evident in the 2016 Global Youth Development Index where India ranked 134th out of 183 countries.
A particularly sad aspect of education and educational system in the country has been a defocus on building institutions of quality. No Indian university ranks in the top 200 universities of the world according to the Times of london’s Higher University Global Rankings for 2016-17. Only two came in the top 400 list. While there are several success stories of Indians being extremely successful when liberated from the Indian education system — Sundar Pichai and Satya Nadella are people the country should be proud of — there is a reason both of them finished their education in the United States. India’s educational system is shaky at the top but the foundations have been hollowed out by harebrained initiatives like the RTE. If India has to take advantage of its demography, it needs to repair its education system and it should take the Modi Government three years to remove the most egregious parts of the Act. Much, much more remains to be done.