Government To Introduce A New Bill That Will End RTE’s Regressive ‘No Detention’ Clause

The Union government is set to introduce a bill in Parliament to conduct examinations for classes five and eight. The proposed bill will also provide an opportunity to all students who fail in March to take the test again in May.

This bill will end one of the most regressive provisions of the RTE (Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education) Act, 2009. Section 16 of the Act stipulates that ‘No child admitted in a school shall be held back in any class or expelled from school till the completion of elementary education’. This policy covers elementary stage of schooling covering classes one to eight.

According to Human Resources Development (HRD) Minister Prakash Javadekar the adherence to the central law will not be made compulsory on the states. The states can decide if they want to hold such examination for students of class five and eight. 24 states have already confirmed that they want the test.

The bill is likely to incorporate the recommendations made by the committee under the chairpersonship of Rajastan Education Minister Prof. Vasudev Devnani. The committee was entrusted with the responsibility to review the feedback received from States/UTs on the ‘No-Detention’ policy.

The key features of the bill may include

(i) There should be an examination at Class 5. It should be left to the States and UTs to decide whether this exam will be at the school, block, District or State Level.

(ii) If a child fails then allow the child an opportunity to improve. There should be additional instructions provided to children and the child should be given an opportunity to sit for another exam. If the child is unable to pass the exam in the second chance, then detain the child.

(iii) At classes six and seven, there should be a school based exam for students.

(iv) At class 8, there should be an external exam. In case the child fails, the child should be given additional instructions and then allowed to appear for an improvement exam. If the child fails again then the child will be detained.