CHENNAI: A day after school education minister K.A.Sengottaiyan announced that state government is deliberating about adopting the proposed changes to the no detention policy, educationists have warned against any move to scrap the present policy, saying that it will push school education backwards. The union cabinet has recently approved the decision to bring in an amendment to the Right to Education (RTE) Act which applies the no detention policy from the present level of class 8 to class 5. The decision whether to adopt the new change or not is left with the concerned states.

At the CABE meeting last year, the Tamil Nadu government had strongly opposed this move. The announcement of school education minister K.A. Sengottaiyan has created doubts that the state may adopt the new amendment.

“State government under former chief minister J. Jayalalithaa opposed changes to the no detention policy. The present government also should follow the same policy,” said P.B.Prince Gajendrababu, general secretary, State Platform for Common School System. “The proposed change will only affect children from poor and marginalised sections. Their dropout rates will increase. Girls too will be pushed out of schools. So government should not detain any student up to class 8,” he urged.

One of the main arguments in favour of making the changes is that students’ learning outcomes are very poor after the implementation of the no detention policy. “Without creating enabling conditions in the schools, it is unfair to punish students. Teachers are responsible for poor learning outcomes and not students,” said Aruna Rathnam, education specialist, Unicef. She added that such a move will not improve quality. “There is no connection between pass/fail and the learning outcome. From a progressive education system, we are again going back to the old Victorian era education system,” she said.

Senior educationist S.S. Rajagopalan said, “Students’ poor performance is due to poor infrastructure and lack of teachers in schools. Government is responsible for the poor performance of students. Students who are poor in early schooling should be given a chance to bloom at a later stage,” he urged.

Sami.Sathymoorthy, state president, Tamil Nadu High and Higher secondary schools Headmasters Association said, “We don’t need exams for classes 5 and 8. It will increase dropout rates and incidents of child marriage will resurface. Government should continue with the present policy and improve teaching and learning aspects.”

Proposed changes

The no detention policy will be lowered from class 8 to 5. There will be an exam at class 5 and the students who fail will get a chance to improve with additional coaching. The child will be detained if he or she fails the second time. Students have to appear for exams at classes 6, 7. An external exam will be conducted at class 8