The lok Sabha on Wednesday unanimously passed the amendment seeking revocation of “no detention” policy in Classes V and VIII, enabling States now to allow schools to fail the child if he/she fails in either or both Classes and withhold their promotion to the next standard. Human Resource Development Minister Prakash Javadekar moved the ‘The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (Second Amendment) Bill, 2017’, which sought for regular examination in Classes V and VIII.
The original Act stipulated that no child admitted in a school shall be held back in any class or expelled from school till the completion of elementary education. Speaking on the debate Trinamool Congress Member Prof Saugata Roy said that this Bill is “not giving chance for us to object”. Roy praised Javadekar for his “non-confrontationist” approach as he supported the Bill. Children often do not study if there are no exams, he said, adding that education system is currently in a bad shape and learning outcomes were going down due to non-detention policy. “We all started studying just days before exam. So exams are necessary. Kids won’t study if no exams,” said Roy evoking laughter in the House.
Opposition parties including the Congress MP KC Venugopal, who initiated the debate for making clear rules for exams and the State Governments should be given control on this.
Echoing similar sentiments, BJD MP Bhartruhari Mahtab said the Government should form uniform guidelines for conducting exams and leave it to the State on how the exams should be conducted. The amended Act will now have provisions not only for examination in both these classes, but will also extend powers to the State to hold back children, if they fail in re-examination — also provisioned in the amended Bill.
Moving the Bill, Javadekar said that the amendment was necessary to improve the “learning outcomes” and that the demands for repeal of ‘no detention’ policy was made by many States and Union Territories in recent years which observed students scoring “poor marks”.
Replying to the debate Javadekar said that it will be at the discretion of the States whether to continue with no detention or not. The States, he said, will decide at what level and who will conduct the examination, the Minister said. “It is a broken education system. We have to rebuild our education system,” he added.
Under the current provisions of the RTE Act, no student can be detained till class VIII and all students are promoted to the next grade. The Minister said that in some of the States like Sikkim, Kerala and Telangana, the students, who were studying in private schools, have come back to Government schools.
“Teacher training, quality and accountability are most important,” Javadekar said. Stating that there was no shortages of teachers, the Minister, however, added that the deployment of teachers was not right. While moving the Bill in the lok Sabha, the Minister said, “It is a very important legislation and a majority of State Governments supported this Centre’s proposal. It brings accountability in our elementary education system.”
This Bill provides for a regular examination in classes V and VIII and if the child fails, he or she shall be given additional opportunity for re-examination in two months’ time, Javadekar said.