RTE Act amended, but schools in Maha stick to no-detention policy

More than a year after the Central government amended the Right to Education (RTE) Act, 2009, to reintroduce detentions for Class 5 and Class 8 students, schools

More than a year after the Central government amended the Right to Education (RTE) Act, 2009, to reintroduce detentions for Class 5 and Class 8 students, schools in the state are far from implementing the rule. With no government resolution (GR) defining the operational aspects of the new policy, schools are ignoring the new rules.

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“We conduct exams in April and students who fail in these exams have to appear for a re-test after a few days. If they fail to clear the retest, we conduct another test in June. The process, however, is so tedious that most schools prefer to pass the students instead of following the entire process,” said a teacher of a Borivli-based school.

Until 2018, schools could not detain any student until Class 8 as per the no-detention policy enshrined in the RTE Act, 2009. However, the RTE amendment bill, 2019, empowers states to reintroduce exams and detain students if they fail to clear the tests.

The previous Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led Maharashtra government promised to implement the amended law from academic year 2019-20, but failed to introduce a GR to guide schools on the details of the new rules.

Jagdish Indalkar, the principal of KVK High School in Ghatkopar, said the implementation of the new rule would only work if remedial teaching is strengthened in schools.

“If a child is failing an exam, the school needs to provide remedial coaching to the student before conducting the next test. If that doesn’t happen, then there is no point in the entire exercise, as the child would not learn. For this, schools should ensure that teachers spend time with such students before and after regular classes every day,” said Indalkar.

Another principal from a Thane-based school said that before deciding on the detention, the government has to lay certain milestones for each class to measure the learning outcomes well.

“We were told that this step would be taken before implementing the new policy, but it never happened,” said the principal, who did not wish to be named.

Uday Nare, a teacher at Hansraj Morarji School in Andheri, said the implementation of the amendment is crucial, as some schools detain students in Class 9 to improve their board results.

“There is data which proves that many students are detained in Class 9 because the school does not want any failures in Class 10. Hence, timely and continuous evaluations become important and need to be implemented at the earliest,” said Nare.

Under the current system, students have to individually pass in all subjects and get a combined passing score for languages in both the semesters to be able to go to the next class. Those who fail to clear the exams have to then take a retest to be eligible to go to the next the class.

Ghanshyam Sonar, an RTE activist from the city, said that reintroducing detention would not serve any purpose.

“By doing so, schools would shrug off their responsibility of improvising the learning outcomes of students, which is against the spirit of the RTE Act,” he said.

HT spoke to state education department officials, who said the state has not yet decided on the implementation of the revised law. “As the new state government was formed only recently, the decision on the implementation is yet to be taken. We are mulling over the implementation of the new law,” an official said.