Myopic policy vision

After the Delhi government’s move to introduce a bill in order to scrap the ldquo;no detentionrdquo; clause Chapter IV Section 16 of the Right to Education Act 2009 in November last year the Union ministry of human resource development is now rethinking the thing. This was made evident in the draft National Education Policy 2016 which suggested a review of the no detention policy.

Although the NDP will be retained up to Class V upper primary students will no longer be covered by the policy. It is being argued that the NDP has seriously affected the academic performance of students by making the processes of teaching and learning inconsequential and therefore adversely affected the quality of school education. Quality in education can be defined in a variety of ways mdash; conventionally in school education the academic performance of students in exams is taken as the marker of their quantum of learning and eventually that measures the ldquo;qualityrdquo; of education imparted by the school.

The NDP one of the most progressive clauses of the RTE Act was introduced along with the continuous and comprehensive evaluation system which aimed to usher in radical examination reforms in the school system. The aim was to facilitate holistic development of children by ensuring that their progress in a given subject is periodically monitored to enable teachers and parents to take adequate measures in time to ensure learning without any threat of ldquo;passrdquo; or ldquo;failrdquo;.

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The major setback to these reforms has come in terms of poor ground level implementation of policies. While in spirit both the NDP and the CCE are based on a broader meaning of education their inability to assess prevailing social practices in the school system that pose systemic bottlenecks in implementation calls for a review.

One of the systemic bottlenecks is in the mindset of the major stakeholders. Indian society including students parents and teachers have traditionally placed a lot of thrust on the results of school examinations. While getting good marks has been the pursuit of a few students a majority especially in government schools gets their fate decided on the basis of being ldquo;passrdquo; or ldquo;failrdquo; in a particular class.

There are a number of factors that pull such students out of school. Failing a grade is socially economically and psychologically costly and one of the most compelling reasons to discontinue schooling. The flip side of the story is threatened by exam results students are incentivised to put in efforts to ensure that do they well in exams. Schools in general and teachers in particular are also historically and socially conditioned to incentivise learning in the class by using the threat of exams and results.

While it is often argued that with the introduction of the NDP and the CCE students have become carefree and non-serious about the teaching and learning processes one must argue that it is a misinterpretation of the NDP and the CCE as ldquo;automatic promotionrdquo; and ldquo;casual assessmentrdquo; policies respectively that have resulted in the failure of these policies.

There is a need for radical change in the attitude of stakeholders towards the concept of ldquo;no detentionrdquo;. Repeating grades has been argued to be one of the biggest factors leading to drop-outs. Policy makers should explore a possibility where promotion can be granted to students on the basis of attaining pass marks in a minimum number of subjects if not all.

The draft NEP also prescribes multiple chances of grade improvement through re-tests. Alternatively it can be proposed that a student not performing well in say either mathematics or English in Class VI be made to repeat only that subject for another year while being promoted to Class VII. Offering multiple courses in different subjects with varying difficulty levels and pedagogical approaches mdash; corresponding to different levels of proficiency mdash; could be adopted as a long-term measure to address this concern.

While it could be argued that six years is not an adequate period to gauge the effectiveness of a policy it is also important to recognise that the NDP in its current state of implementation is creating a learning vacuum at the most fundamental level of education because of systemic barriers. While rethinking is a welcome step criticising the spirit of the NDP because of its poor implementation implies sheer intellectual laziness and myopic policy vision.

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The writer is full time faculty also assistant professor and assistant director Centre for Social and Education Policy Jindal Global Law School

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