The Union Cabinet on Wednesday approved the scrapping of the policy of no detention in schools, reported PTI. The policy was introduced under the Right to Education Act, 2009. According to the policy, schools were not allowed to fail or expel a student up to Class 8.

The Bill has proposed to allow states to detain students in Class 5 and Class 8 if they fail the year-end exam. However, the states will have to give them a second chance before stopping their promotion to the next class.

The Bill will now be placed before the Parliament.

The RTE Act, 2009, had no provision for detaining students till Class 8. “No child admitted in a school shall be held back in any class or expelled from school till the completion of elementary education,” reads the Section 16 of the Act. Instead, schools were asked to track their progress constantly, a process described as “continuous comprehensive evaluation”. Under the Act, students were promoted automatically up to Class 9.