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2017-08-25

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Developmental Issues
www.thehindu.com

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The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (Second Amendment) Bill of 2017 aims to maintain the standard of elementary education along with the avowed objective of providing compulsory education to children between the ages of six and 14.

The new Bill introduced in the Lok Sabha proposes to substitute Section 16 in the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act of 2009, which provides that “no child admitted in a school shall be held back in any class or expelled from school till the completion of elementary education.” The provision was made in the original Act because examinations were often used to hold back children who obtained poor marks. Parliament had no intention to demotivate a child by compelling him or her to repeat the same class or leave school altogether.

However, the recent years have seen several States and Union territories raise the adverse impact of Section 16 on elementary education. Authorities claimed that there was a steady dip in the learning standards of students in elementary classes.

The new Bill has substituted Section 16 “in order to improve the learning outcomes in the elementary classes”. The Centre said this step has been taken after “wide deliberations with all the stakeholders”.

The Bill provides for a regular examination to be conducted in the fifth and eighth classes at the end of every academic year. If a child fails in the examination, he or she shall be given “additional instruction” and granted an opportunity for re-examination within the next two months.

In case the child fails in the re-examination too, the appropriate State government would be empowered with the authority to allow schools to either hold back or not hold back the child in the same class. No child, however, shall be expelled from a school till the completion of elementary education, the Bill clarified.

Earlier this year, the NITI Aayog had called for a review of the provisions of the 2009 Act on the ground that the best intentions enumerated under Section 16 were actually proving detrimental to elementary learning processes. Stakeholders argued that the situation was such that a child could be promoted till eighth class without probably being even able to read or write.

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