NEW DELHI:The Lok Sabha on Wednesday passed an amendment to the Right to Education Act, doing away with the no-detention policy that prohibits schools from detaining students till they complete elementary education. The amendment allows states to hold a regular examination at the end of Classes 5 and 8.
According to the amendment Bill, a child who fails in the final examination for Classes 5 and 8 will be given additional instruction and the opportunity to appear for a re-examination. The re-xamination must be held within a period of two months from the date of the declaration of results. If the child still does not pass, the state government may decide to detain them.However, no child can be expelled from school before he/she completes elementary education, the Bill states.
The proposed amendment was introduced in August 2017 and referred to a Standing Committee of the Rajya Sabha. The committee submitted its report to both Houses of Parliament in February, endorsing the amendment Bill “in its present form”.
The no-detention policy of the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009, banned the practice of making under-performing children repeat classes in elementary school — Classes 1 to 8 — to ensure they do not drop out.
It was meant to reduce the emphasis on year-end examinations and replace it with a form of evaluation that would track students’ progress through the year.However, the present government feels the lack of ‘pass-fail’ system has led to deterioration in quality of learning in schools, as was evident in the poor results of the National Assessment Survey carried out by the HRD Ministry and the NCERT.
No walkover
A child who fails in the final exams for Classes 5 and 8 will be given additional instruction and will have to appear for re-test to be held within two months. If the child still does not pass, he or she may be detained in the same class.