Article on education
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On 3 January, 2019, parliament amended Section 16 of the Right to Education (RTE) Act, popularly known as the ‘No Detention Policy’ (NDP). The policy guaranteed promotion through class 1-8 for all children, irrespective of their readiness. The now amended policy allows states to frame rules that could re-introduce detention in class 5 or class 8.
The rationale provided for the amendment is as follows: with guaranteed promotion, students and teachers feel no compulsion to learn or teach, which has an adverse impact on learning. The sub-text being — high stakes exams help drive learning.
This notion was tackled by the original framers of RTE, who argued that exams create unnecessary pressure, and detention as a consequence of exams, is unhealthy for children. Holding children back in classrooms where they have failed to learn, without changing anything about the teaching-learning process, doesn’t improve learning. It leads to children dropping out. Additionally, detention in early classes labels children as ‘failures’ too soon; and for that reason alone, detention in elementary school should be prohibited.
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