CHENNAI: The Ministry of Human Resource Development has revived its plan to re -introduce Board exams for Class VIII students. It is learnt that Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Telangana were among the five states to oppose this recommendation by Central Advisory Board for Education (CABE) sub-committee constituted to look into Centre’s ‘No Detention Policy’.
Under this policy, no child can be expelled from school or detained till Class VIII. In an attempt to assess the progress and review the policy, a CABE sub-committee was constituted on June 2012. The sub-committee’s report was presented before CABE, the highest advisory body in the country on education in its meeting held on August 2015.
The sub-committee had recommended revocation of the No Detention Policy and all the States and Union Territories were requested to share their views during the meet in August 2014.
“Twenty eight States have submitted their views and 23 among them supported the modification.”
Highly placed sources in the Ministry said, “Twenty eight States have submitted their views and 23 among them supported the modification. Based on these views, another sub-committee under chairmanship of Rajasthan Education Minister Vasudev Devnani was formed on September 2015.”
This sub-committee reviewed the policy and came out with its final set of recommendations. One among them was the conduct of a board exam for Class VIII. “This should be an external exam and improvement exam should be conducted for those who did not attain minimum marks set by the respective State School Education Department or Boards,” said a sub-committee member, adding that students who failed re-exam should be detained.
For lower elementary classes, the sub-committee has recommended a school or district level exam for Class V students and those who do not show improvement should be detained. This indicated that the policy is limited up to Class IV.
“There is a status quo. Tamil Nadu has opposed this recommendation and will continue to conduct board exams only for Class X and XII,” said a top official from TN School Education Department.
Ministry sources said an amendment will be enacted based on the recommendations. As education is on the concurrent list, the decision to review will be left to the States.