Government in a bind over no detention policy

Hyderabad: The Telangana government is in second thoughts over scrapping of no detention policy in the schools. The Telangana government which had almost agreed to the centre’s proposal to do away with no detention system during the all State Education Ministers held recently at New Delhi, after seeing the ground reality and the strong opposition from District Education Officers seems to be having a rethinking on the issue.

According to section 16 of the Right to Education Act, no student should be detained in a class until the student completes his/her elementary education i.e. from class I to VIII. This means that students would be promoted to the next class even if they fail in a class till they complete elementary school.

The MHRD now wants to repeal the no detention policy and is under process of consultations with the state governments. The Telangana government now feels that scrapping no detention system would increase the drop-outs in the schools especially in the government schools particularly among the girl students.

The District Educational Officers (DEOs) had also expressed this view on Tuesday during a one-day workshop which was attended by Principal Secretary to Government, Education department, Rajeev R Acharya, Commissioner, School Education, T Chiranjeevulu. Barring two DEOs, all of them staunchly opposed the scrapping the system saying that it would be child right infringement.

DEOs were of the view that eliminating the system would put heavy stress on the children for scoring good marks in the academics and extracurricular activities would take a beating. A DEO on condition of anonymity told The Hans India that the Continuous and Comprehensive Evaluation (CCE) system which was introduced by the government should be strengthened rather scrap the no detention system. “If no detention system is implemented, the economically poor students in the government schools will be badly affected.