MARKS SCORED in English and mathematics should not be considered for a student's promotion in secondary school. Promote even if he or she fails in these subjects. This is what the National Commission for Minority Education Institutions (NCMEI) is planning to suggest to the Centre.
MARKS SCORED in English and mathematics should not be considered for a student's promotion in secondary school. Promote even if he or she fails in these subjects. This is what the National Commission for Minority Education Institutions (NCMEI) is planning to suggest to the Centre.
HT Image
{{^htLoading}} {{/htLoading}}
The reason for the proposal: it will help stem the number of school dropouts from educationally weaker sections. The CBSE has already responded positively to the NCMEI's suggestion.
The NCMEI, which is planning to submit a proposal to the HRD Ministry to frame a national policy in this regard, says English and mathematics are the main reasons for students dropping out from government schools. And leading the dropouts are educationally weaker sections like Muslims, STs, SCs and OBCs (in that order), according to a survey by the elementary education department of the HRD Ministry.
Justice (retd) S.S. Siddique, chairperson of NCMEI, recently told HT: "We've noticed that Muslim students have a problem with maths and English and face difficulty clearing these exams. So, we want these subjects to be made optional. It will also improve the intake of students from weaker sections."
{{^htLoading}} {{/htLoading}}
{{^usCountry}}
While upper-caste students form just 3.73 per cent of school dropouts, Muslims form 9.97 per cent and STs
{{/usCountry}}
{{#usCountry}}
While upper-caste students form just 3.73 per cent of school dropouts, Muslims form 9.97 per cent and STs
{{/usCountry}}
9.54 per cent. An NCMEI official said the survey showed a sudden jump in dropout rates from Class V when "clearing all exams becomes a condition for promotion".
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.
