BENGALURU: Minister for Primary and Secondary Education S Suresh Kumar announced last month that public exams would be held for 7th standard students from this academic year. But the Associated Management of Primary and Secondary Schools in Karnataka is in no mood to follow it. The association says they will not cooperate, should such an order be implemented.
“Holding public exams in 7th is an injustice to students and is just to create a fear factor. With the government following a ‘no-detention policy’, such an exercise is pointless,” said Shashi Kumar D, general secretary of the association.
Another reason why they are objecting to is that they say there is no provision in the RTE Act to hold a public exam in class 7.
“Moreover, the government has announced it in the middle of the school year and it is not feasible to implement it this academic year. As per the RTE Act, a child can be detained if he or she does not pass exams in class 5 and 8. Since the Karnataka government does not consider class 8 as Higher Primary, as per the National Education Policy, it wants to hold the exam in class 7,” Kumar added.
The association has written to Suresh Kumar stating that the quality of content in state syllabus textbooks is poor for grades 1 to 5.
They demanded that the textbooks be on par with NCERT (National Council of Educational Research and Training) guidelines, especially for Maths and EVS (environmental studies) from standard 1 to 5.
“As per the NCERT report, the textbooks supplied to English medium schools across Karnataka are substandard and are not on par with the National Curriculum Framework 2005,” Kumar said. The association has demanded that private schools be allowed to use their own syllabus.
In order to promote Kannada language and culture, the association will hold a two-day cultural festival ‘Karnataka Vaibhava’ on November 29 and 30 at Freedom Park.