Dinesh Kamath's Editorial 'Stop tinkering with the RTE Act' that was published in Newsband

Stop tinkering with the RTE Act

Is the legislation to amend the Right to Education Act, passed by the Lok Sabha, to give States the power to detain students who fail an examination in Class 5 or 8, a right measure? The proposed change will allow State Boards to declare a student failed and detain her on the basis of an examination. But Section 30(1) of the RTE Act holds out the assurance that no child shall be required to face any Board examination till completion of elementary education. Detaining already disadvantaged children can only break it further, and render the RTE Act a dead letter.

In fact, in 2016 the NITI Aayog found, based on a study in Punjab, that bringing back detention in elementary schooling would increase the dropout rate, impacting the poor and Dalits the most as they depended on government institutions.

Basic education alone would create sufficient condition for the development of the nation. Education should be a natural process of time-function worldly experiences, supported by elderly mentoring that helps youngsters to open up their creativity and innovative power. Additionally, the national objective should be to make sure that Education helps in human thought-processes working on real problems and needs of the nation. Heretofore our Education system has only been an externally concocted irrelevant arrangement whereby youngsters are forced to "mug up" things that they would never understand in a natural manner, and not knowing why they study those. This should change

Many are of the opinion that only fear of failure will make the so called disadvantaged student put effort on at least clearing the exams. What is the use of automatic pass? Some students were heard saying that they are coming to school just to receive Free Laptop and Free meals only. Nothing else. It is an insult to the education system if it doesn't change course. The recent amendment will restore some semblance of quality in the education system.

But there are others who argue that detention demoralizes the kids. The number of years schooling will be affected.  Success in learning does not depend upon only the school, but the educational attainment of parents, siblings and financial strength of parents. Permit the students to study and attend schools for minimum of 12 years. It helps the society and the younger lot in the long run.

Detention has not led to improvement of their academic performance. Much more than that, teachers had an aversion towards the second year students and approached them as useless.