The question that has the school-education world agog is whether the Union government is moving towards amending the Right to Education Act and reinstating the old practice of failing primary school children who do not pass the final exam. At the first meeting of the Central Advisory Board of Education after last year’s general election, there was reportedly a consensus among states that children were not learning, which meant that the policy of “no-detention” introduced under the 2009 RTE Act was not working and should be revoked. The Human Resource Development Ministry has asked state governments to formally write to the Centre asking for a change in law within 15 days.
The Right to Education Act, 2009, was seen as revolutionising primary education (class I to VIII) in India by changing how children would learn and be assessed on their learning. The key to these changes was a “no-detention policy” alongside “comprehensive and continuous evaluation”. This put an end to the decisive annual exam in which children either passed and were promoted to the next class or failed and were held back. The idea was simple: teachers would now assess a child’s learning throughout the year, intervening with special help where necessary. This would ensure that no child ended the year not having learnt and hence promotion to the next grade would be automatic.
This system was designed to make teachers accountable for their student’s learning outcomes, instead of blaming children for not having learnt. It also, in a few short years, had the virtuous effect of lowering the number of drop-outs, as failing children are more likely to drop out than any other, and poorer children, were more likely to fail than any other.
Learning deficit
In 2012, the HRD ministry clarified in detail its rationale for the provisions of the RTE Act. In relation to non-detention and CCE, it said:
Yet, the pressure to amend the RTE Act has been immense. Every year a significant number of children leave school without rudimentary reading and writing skills. Grappling with this learning deficit, several, but not all, state governments have decided that the no-detention policy is to blame (although there is no evidence to suggest that learning levels were any higher while detention was the policy). The rather thought-free approach to education, which drives the education establishment from schoolteachers to ministers might well explain why we have the learning deficit. There is a belief, despite evidence to the contrary, that children lack the motivation to learn without the pressure of exams. The old metrics of pass and fail via exams, that test mostly rote learning, is still considered the best measure of education.
A very large number of teachers and education administrators also believe that the children who fail in this system do so because they are incapable of learning. This is true of teachers and administrators in both government and private schools, which under the RTE Act are required to admit 25% of students from economically weaker sections. These children, they say, have “a weak background”, by which they mean poverty, parents without education or the lack of a stable family life. Socio-economic or “family” factors do make a difference to how children learn, but they are not in and of themselves barriers to learning. But, way too many teachers and school administrators are not naturally empathetic to children from poor families or from castes lower than their own. Teacher education is not designed to make them question their own prejudices. And, they are a critical part of the “delivery system” that the HRD ministry says is at fault when children fail to learn.
System failure
Some concede that the new system is a better way for children to learn. But their argument against it is that it is impossible to implement as it places too high a burden on teachers or that it is nearly impossible for government to provide the level of teacher training and support to properly implement CCE and hence no-detention policy. Even five years after the RTE Act was passed, teachers, it seems, do not understand the philosophy of CCE (that children should learn with comprehension in a non-hostile environment) or the methodology they are required to follow.
In some places, to get around the responsibility of teaching a child to learn, teachers have simply gamed the system. In Delhi and Punjab, for example, ignoring whether the child was learning or not, teachers inflated grades on through-year assessments. The consequence of this was massive number of children failing after class VII. No teachers, school administrators or education department officials have been punished. In the HRD ministry’s words “the failure is of the system, rather than of the child”, yet it is the child who is punished.
As the HRD ministry goes about gathering support for an amendment to the no-detention provision of the RTE Act, it might pause to consider whose interests it is serving. Is it school children’s? Or is it their teachers’ who are either not trained and supported or cannot be bothered to ensure that they learn? Or is it the private school administrator who sees poor children as too much of a bother in his goal to get his school a good rating?
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The Right to Education Act, 2009, was seen as revolutionising primary education (class I to VIII) in India by changing how children would learn and be assessed on their learning. The key to these changes was a “no-detention policy” alongside “comprehensive and continuous evaluation”. This put an end to the decisive annual exam in which children either passed and were promoted to the next class or failed and were held back. The idea was simple: teachers would now assess a child’s learning throughout the year, intervening with special help where necessary. This would ensure that no child ended the year not having learnt and hence promotion to the next grade would be automatic.
This system was designed to make teachers accountable for their student’s learning outcomes, instead of blaming children for not having learnt. It also, in a few short years, had the virtuous effect of lowering the number of drop-outs, as failing children are more likely to drop out than any other, and poorer children, were more likely to fail than any other.
Learning deficit
In 2012, the HRD ministry clarified in detail its rationale for the provisions of the RTE Act. In relation to non-detention and CCE, it said:
“The RTE Act…releases the child from fear and trauma of failure and enables the teacher to pay individual attention to the child’s learning and performance…a ‘failed’ child is not because of any inherent drawback in the child, but most often the inadequacy of the learning environment and the delivery system… meaning thereby that the failure is of the system, rather than of the child… There is no study of research that suggests that the quality of the learning of the child improves if the child is failed. In fact, more often than not the child [who fails] abandons school/learning altogether.”
Yet, the pressure to amend the RTE Act has been immense. Every year a significant number of children leave school without rudimentary reading and writing skills. Grappling with this learning deficit, several, but not all, state governments have decided that the no-detention policy is to blame (although there is no evidence to suggest that learning levels were any higher while detention was the policy). The rather thought-free approach to education, which drives the education establishment from schoolteachers to ministers might well explain why we have the learning deficit. There is a belief, despite evidence to the contrary, that children lack the motivation to learn without the pressure of exams. The old metrics of pass and fail via exams, that test mostly rote learning, is still considered the best measure of education.
A very large number of teachers and education administrators also believe that the children who fail in this system do so because they are incapable of learning. This is true of teachers and administrators in both government and private schools, which under the RTE Act are required to admit 25% of students from economically weaker sections. These children, they say, have “a weak background”, by which they mean poverty, parents without education or the lack of a stable family life. Socio-economic or “family” factors do make a difference to how children learn, but they are not in and of themselves barriers to learning. But, way too many teachers and school administrators are not naturally empathetic to children from poor families or from castes lower than their own. Teacher education is not designed to make them question their own prejudices. And, they are a critical part of the “delivery system” that the HRD ministry says is at fault when children fail to learn.
System failure
Some concede that the new system is a better way for children to learn. But their argument against it is that it is impossible to implement as it places too high a burden on teachers or that it is nearly impossible for government to provide the level of teacher training and support to properly implement CCE and hence no-detention policy. Even five years after the RTE Act was passed, teachers, it seems, do not understand the philosophy of CCE (that children should learn with comprehension in a non-hostile environment) or the methodology they are required to follow.
In some places, to get around the responsibility of teaching a child to learn, teachers have simply gamed the system. In Delhi and Punjab, for example, ignoring whether the child was learning or not, teachers inflated grades on through-year assessments. The consequence of this was massive number of children failing after class VII. No teachers, school administrators or education department officials have been punished. In the HRD ministry’s words “the failure is of the system, rather than of the child”, yet it is the child who is punished.
As the HRD ministry goes about gathering support for an amendment to the no-detention provision of the RTE Act, it might pause to consider whose interests it is serving. Is it school children’s? Or is it their teachers’ who are either not trained and supported or cannot be bothered to ensure that they learn? Or is it the private school administrator who sees poor children as too much of a bother in his goal to get his school a good rating?
