Why Punish Students For Systemic Faults?

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said in her latest budget speech, "Viksit Bharat encompasses 100 percent good quality school education." Yet, education remained grossly underfunded in her budget outlay for the year, with an expenditure of 2.9 percent of the GDP, much below the 6 percent recommended by the Kothari Commission.

- Avinash Reddy Pichhili Co-founder of DEVISE

The Indian education system is plagued by numerous longstanding structural issues. However, governments continue to attempt quick-fix solutions. One such recent intervention is the 'detention' policy, replacing the no-detention policy (NDP).

The NDP, introduced through the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education or RTE Act of 2009, is based on a child-centric approach that acknowledges that children's 'failure' is primarily attributable to systemic failures. The NDP aimed to retain pupils in school by addressing their fear of examinations, as children were compelled to either repeat a class or forgo schooling altogether if they obtained low scores. Section 16 of the law prohibited holding back and expelling children till they completed 8th class.

Ten years after the law's enactment, it was amended to empower governments to detain students in the 5th and 8th classes—a knee-jerk reaction to some states and territories attributing their declining learning levels to NDP. More recently, the Centre introduced the detention policy in all central government-run schools.

The states had relied on the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) for 2022 to highlight declining learning levels in rural government-run schools. However, it's crucial to see the latest ASER, released this January, which paints a different picture. A comparison of the states that have withdrawn the NDP does not indicate any causal relationship with an increase or decrease in learning levels.