Schools: Get cracking

School education is a key subject that needs much more detailed discussion and interaction between policymakers and educationists. There is an ongoing crisis in this crucial task of educating emerging generations, that hasn’t quite been solved by policies implemented in earlier reforms. There is near universal agreement that the “no detention” policy upto Class 8 has led to further deterioration of standards and widely impacted learning outcomes. While the Central Advisory Board of Education (CABE) recommendation that the “no-detention” clause in the Right to Education Act be amended, leading to children from Class 5 till Class 8 held back if they fail in school examinations, states will be well advised to drop the policy and make students more competitive by taking school exams for promotion to higher classes.

Altogether 21 states attended the recent CABE meeting, and more may have demanded freedom to act on the “no detention” policy, in force for five years, only to dismantle it and prepare children for competition. Given how the impression has spread that nowadays even graduates are unemployable, and may need long corporate training programmes to get proficient for the world outside classrooms, it is important that our school education policy be looked at afresh and policies aim for sweeping reforms. The HRD ministry’s recent change at the top means the draft new education policy is still in a fluid state, and far from getting into concrete shape for the 2018 academic season. There has simply been too much lateral movement over this matter, and not enough going forward.