HYDERABAD: With the Right to Education (RTE) Act having been amended, the ‘no detention’ provision that allowed all students to get promotion till Class VIII, has been done away with. Accordingly, if they fail in the annual examinations of Classes V and VIII, they will be given two months’ time to reappear for the examination. If they fail again, they may be detained in the same class.
Educationists, however, have condemned the bill and said it will have an adverse effect on the education system and particularly on marginalised sections such as STs, SCs, BCs and minorities. Prof G Haragopal, for instance, views examination as being incidental to learning but the level of learning does not depend on examination and should not be seen as the sole criterion for promoting children.
Flaying the notion that failing students based on the result of an annual examination will lead to improved learning outcomes, he said outcomes need to be monitored. “In fact, the aim of the non-detention system was continuous monitoring. You cannot wait for a year to hold an examination and detain a child if he has not learnt anything. Treating the exam as the final outcome, to me, is lack of imagination. If you ensure proper infrastructure and teachers, learning will take place as a natural process,” he said.
The RTE Forum, Telangana has also criticised the passage of the bill. Murali Mohan, its Telangana convener, said it is aimed at making labourers out of students because of the increased focus on skill development, ITI, etc.
Child rights activist Achyuta Rao agrees that detention will lead to dropouts and, in turn, encourage child labour and child marriages. “Most parents who are illiterate will tell their children to do some work and earn money, or get married instead of repeating a class.” Also, as per the bill, it is not binding on States to follow the detention rule. If states want to, they can continue the no-detention policy till Class VIII. It also states that no child can be expelled from the school before it completes elementary education which is from Class I to X. Haragopal says since education is in concurrent list, states have autonomy to frame own rules. “But if Centre tells a state it won’t give funds if it doesn’t accept its policy, then it will be a problem.”
Students protest
Students and activists of SUCI (Communist) staged a demonstration near the office of a directorate of school education at Saifabad on Thursday in protesting Centre’s decision to reintroduce detention system