BENGALURU: The state government has conveyed to the Union Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) that it would like to continue with the existing policy of not detaining students up to Class 8. This was communicated at a recent meeting in the city to discuss the New Education Policy, chaired by the HRD Minister Smriti Irani.
HRD officials said Karnataka was the only state against the removal of the No-detention Policy. “Out of the 20 states from which the HRD Ministry had sought opinions, 19 expressed support for removal of the policy. Karnataka is the only state that said no to it,” an HRD ministry official said.
This issue was raised in the recent CABE (Central Advisory Board for Education) meeting and following resistance from Karnataka, the HRD ministry decided to collect opinions from all the states. “We have also constituted a committee consisting Education Ministers of three states and HRD officials, who handle primary and secondary education. The committee is getting opinion from all states and once it submits a report, it will be placed before the next CABE meeting,” an official said.
According to Section 29 (h) of the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, no student shall be required to pass any exams in any of the boards. However, taking this as a main agenda in the CABE meeting, HRD ministry decided to do away with it.
Speaking to Express, State Primary and Secondary Education Minister Kimmane Rathnakar said, “Most of the states are favouring the removal of no-detention policy. But we are clear about it and have communicated this to HRD officials. I expressed this in the recent consultation meeting in Bengaluru on New Education policy.”
However, the state government plans to conduct an assessment test for children. “We are awaiting the Union Government’s decision on this,” said Kimmane. The state government plans to carry out assessment test for Class 7 students from the next academic year.
Teachers Okay With Detention
The teachers’ fraternity is okay with the decision to remove the policy. Sharing their views with Express, H K Manjunath, president of Karnataka Secondary Schools Assistant Masters’ Association said, “This policy came into force after introduction of the Sarva Siksha Abhiyan. Till then we used to detain students. My opinion is to detain students in the class they are no capable of getting through, instead of passing them to the next.”
“We can remove the word fail, but there is a need to make them learn everything related to that particular class and then promote them further. What we are practising now at lower levels is affecting children during their higher education,” he said.
Keertesh, another teacher, said, “If the government wants to continue with no detention policy, it is better to stick do so up to Class 6.”