The Rajya Sabha and the Lok Sabha has passed the bill, The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (Amendment Bill), 2019, which says to remove the ‘no detention’ policy up to Class 8th.
According to the old policy, children could not be failed in examinations and their promotion to the next class cannot be withheld up to Class 8th. Now the policy has been changed and the no detention policy has been removed.
The debate continued until Human Resource Development Minister Prakash Javadekar responded saying 25 states being in favor and 4 states being against the policy.
“The Bill is leaving it to the states to either end the no detention policy or keep it,” Javadekar said, as he underlined that “driving out” children from schools was not the objective of the bill.
“It says there should be an examination. Competition is not a killer. When children play, they also participate in a competition of sorts. So, they should take school examinations in the same spirit,” he said.
In regards to the increase in the dropout rate, he said “There are no dropouts up to Class 8 as there is no examination. But there is a 20 percent dropout rate at Class 9 and another 20 percent at Class 10. But ‘you have not learned what you have studied’ is no education.”
He further adds that it is the teacher’s responsibility to provide remedial classes for two months to students who fail and prepare them for the re-examination.
He also confirms that there will be no board exams for class 5th and 8th, instead the school will conduct a normal examination.
This Bill will be proposed after the President to confirm it to be the law.