The problems with the new No Detention Policy

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The much-awaited New Education Policy (NEP) was released by HRD Minister Smriti Irani earlier in June. The policy draft has been prepared by the TSR Subramanian Committee and includes several recommendations that need both debate and deliberations. One such is the revision of the “no detention policy” (NDP). This states that no child will be held back in any class until Class VII or be expelled from school till the completion of elementary education. It was implemented as part of the Continuous and Comprehensive Evaluation in the Right to Education Act 2009.

The TSR committee recommends that NDP must apply only till class V, when the child will be 11 years old approximately. At the upper primary stage — that is after class V — the system of detention would be restored, subject to the provision of remedial coaching and at least two extra chances being offered to prove a child’s capability to move on to a higher class. The idea is that a student who is performing badly is given the scope to improve, but with a timeline.

In India, education is considered important for three reasons and each one is a subset of the other: a good job, good money and a better standard of living. Unfortunately, revoking the NDP will primarily deprive the economically disadvantaged and act as a serious disincentive because it will have a domino effect.

Before analysing the NDP, there is one basic point to keep in mind. Anyone who has spent a significant time in the education sector – I was a Teach For India Fellow myself, taught for two years in a municipal school in Delhi and have worked with other organisations – can confirm that the quality of education in government schools is dismal. As a result, not only are the students not getting the education they should, there’s less incentive to attend school and at the first opportunity, parents who do care about educating their children try to shift them to private schools. This is not simply a bias, but a serious problem that is substantiated statistically.

A  survey on education by the National Sample Survey Organisation revealed that 62 per cent of children in India attended a government primary school in 2014, while 72.6 per cent had done so in 2007-08. That’s a significant drop. The Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) conducted by Pratham, an NGO working in the education sector, only 40 per cent of class V rural children are able to read Class II-level texts. The ASER report further reveals that private school enrolment stood has increased from 8.7 per cent in 2006 to 30.8 per cent in 2014. The incidence of private tuition is much higher in states with higher government school enrolment. For instance, in Odisha and Bihar, almost 50 per cent children pay for tuitions. In West Bengal, this number is as high as 70 per cent.

Consider two average kids – let’s call them Prachi and Manish. While Prachi studies in a municipal school in Delhi, Manish studies in a government school in Bihar.  Prachi’s father is a rickshaw-puller, Manish’s father works in a factory. Students like Prachi and Manish rely upon government schools, yet these don’t provide them with quality education. This means, Prachi’s rickshaw-puller father and Manish’s factory working-father will need to find the money to pay for a private education if the family is serious about educating the children. If they can’t afford a private school — which is likely, given the astronomical costs of education — an economically-disadvantaged student’s of chances of getting a good education without paying hefty sums for private tuitions/school are effectively nil.

Under the circumstances, the government has no moral ground to blame children for their inability to clear exams if they aren’t able to train and provide good teachers in their schools.

Now let’s consider the following points.

Many private companies and organisations require minimum qualifications – such as Class VIII pass, Class X pass, etc – for posts of peons, nurses, waiters, drivers, helpers, and so on.  All persons who wish to apply for a commercial vehicle license need to have minimum qualification of having cleared Class-VIII, as per government rules. For girls often, educational qualifications play a significant role in marriage negotiations. Furthermore, in Rajasthan and Haryana, minimum educational qualifications have been made mandatory for contesting the panchayat elections.

This means that students like Prachi and Manish — if they become victims of NDP — won’t ever be able to apply for these jobs as neither do they have access to quality education nor can their families afford private schools. If they’re not able to study till Class VII, they’re not only deprived of basic education, but are also ineligible to apply for jobs and even contest elections.

Therein lies in the flaw in the no detention policy. On one hand, the basic systems are not in place and the quality of education in government schools is dismal. On the other, minimum qualifications for future job opportunities are such that students from low income families would be left in the lurch with nowhere to go.

If the government could ensure that public schools provided a decent quality of education, had teachers who were well-qualified and despite that if a child is not able to pass his/her exams, then it would make sense to enforce NDP. Furthermore, the NEP’s provision that “at the upper primary stage, the system of detention shall be restored subject to the provision of remedial coaching and at least two extra chances being offered to prove his capability to move to a higher class,” won’t really lead to anything substantial. If there is no guarantee of quality education and basic teaching, then how can one be sure of the quality of remedial coaching and the process behind those extra two chances?