Law tweak to leave no-detention decision to states

TT, New Delhi, Oct 25: The Central Advisory Board of Education has suggested that the Right to Education Act be amended to allow states to decide whether or not students should be held back in a class based on learning outcome.

The CABE has, however, left it to the Union human resource development ministry to take a call on a proposal to make the CBSE Class X board examination compulsory.

A meeting chaired by HRD minister Prakash Javadekar, who heads the CABE, and attended by 28 education ministers, educationists and other officials today discussed at length the existing no-detention policy that allows a child to get continuous promotion up to Class VIII.

"Multiple surveys show the learning outcome of children is getting poorer. Most states want to introduce a provision to detain children in Class V and Class VIII. A suitable amendment will be proposed in the RTE act to allow states to review the no-detention policy," Javadekar told a news conference.

If any state introduces such a provision, it will have to ensure that a supplementary exam is held the same year to give a detained student another chance to clear the test and get promotion, Javadekar said.

Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Goa and Maharashtra are not in favour of scrapping the no-detention policy.

According to the RTE act, schools are required to conduct a continuous and comprehensive evaluation (CCE) of how a child is learning at his/her own pace through various activities. The stress is on co-curricular activities like games, art and craft, music and drama. There has to be continuous assessment but no child would fail.

Academics feel that most education departments and schools in states have misunderstood the CCE concept.

"CCE speaks about activity-based learning to enable children to learn at their pace. It was misunderstood as only activities and no learning," said Yagnamurthy Sreekanth, the head of the education survey division at the National Council of Educational Research and Training.

HRD minister Javadekar said learning outcome had been mentioned in the RTE act but had not been codified. Recently, the NCERT drew up a class-wise expected learning outcome proposal for children.

"We will include the learning outcome for each class in the rules under the RTE act. It will ensure accountability of stakeholders," he said.

Sreekanth said scrapping the no-detention policy would make teachers more accountable. "Earlier, teachers could blame the accumulated burden for students' poor results in the board exams. Now they cannot escape responsibility."

There is also a suggestion to amend the RTE act to extend the deadline for training teachers. The act, which took effect in April 2010, had set a five-year deadline.

"There are five lakh untrained teachers even today. The CABE has advised that the deadline be extended by another five years," Javadekar said.

Such an extension is likely to help Bengal, which accounts for nearly 1.5 lakh of the five lakh untrained teachers in the country.

There are only about 150 institutions offering BEd courses in Bengal and about 140 primary teacher training institutes offering diploma courses. There are about 50,000 elementary schools in the state.