Autar Nehru (Delhi)

It’s official. the revolutionary mandate of the historic Right of Children to Free & Compulsory Education (aka RTE) Act, 2009 to abolish all exams for children in elementary school (classes I-VIII) has been revoked.

Five years after this intent was notified in 2019, on December 16, the Central government amended RTE Rules under a Gazette of India notification restoring year end examinations for children in classes V and VIII of all government and CBSE schools. In the original RTE Act under s.29 (2), term and final year examinations in elementary education (classes I-VIII) were forbidden to “make the child free of fear, trauma, and anxiety”.

Instead, a process described as “comprehensive and continuous evaluation of the child’s understanding and ability to apply knowledge” was recommended in lieu of examinations. Moreover, s. 30 of the RTE Act explicitly prohibited formal board exams for children in classes I-VIII. “No child shall be required to pass any Board examination till completion of elementary education,” said the section.

These commendably liberal provisions of the RTE Act, 2009 which belatedly mandated free and compulsory public education for every child 62 years after independence — almost all Asian countries had introduced free and compulsory public primary/elementary education in the 1950s — bears the stamp and imprint of woke limousine liberal Kapil Sibal who was Union HRD/education minister of the Congress-led UPA-II government at the Centre at that time. 

In retrospect, it’s clear that Sibal, also a top-ranked lawyer of the Supreme Court who reportedly earns over Rs.50 crore per year for his contribution towards the country’s infamous and dreaded legal system, clearly had no idea of the grassroots realities of India’s K-12 education, especially rural public education. 

Comprehensive and continuous evaluation (CCE) in the country’s 1.10 million government schools was doomed to fail because indolent, indifferent teachers of government schools defined by crumbling buildings, multi-grade teaching and conspicuously lacking lavatories, laboratories and libraries couldn’t be expected to implement CCE which requires additional work and training. In the circumstances, the no-detention mandate of the RTE Act proved a disaster as several million children with rock-bottom learning outcomes have been routinely promoted to the next class.

It’s surprising that ss. 29 and 30 were included in the RTE Act, because the yearly Annual Status of Education Reports (ASER) of the independent Pratham Education Foundation (as routinely reported by EducationWorld) had been highlighting the abysmal reading and numeracy learning outcomes of primary school children in rural India. As a result over the past 15 years, millions of children with no real education have been pitchforked into secondary education forcing lowering of assessment standards in secondary and higher education.

Now with the latest (2023) ASER report indicating that almost half of 18-year-olds struggle with reading and numeracy attainments they should have acquired in class V, and higher education leaders loudly complaining about the poor foundational learning of school-leavers, the BJP/NDA government at the Centre and in 18 states have issued notifications for restoration of classes V and VIII exams from the start of the next academic year.

However, children who fail to pass these exams are required to be given additional instruction and opportunity for re-examination within two months. “If the child appearing in the re-examination referred in sub-rule (2), fails to fulfil the promotion criteria again, he shall be held back in fifth class or eighth class, as the case may be,”  to redo the curriculum.  “The Head of the school shall maintain a list of children who are held back and personally monitor the provisions provided for specialised inputs to such children and their progress with respect to the identified learning gaps,” states the notification.

Most experienced educators welcome the scrapping of the “over-liberal” no-exams rule for primary/elementary school children. The consensus among educators is that the stress that s. 29 attempted to eliminate is inevitable and part of life and children should be introduced to  “ mild stress” in their early years.

“The Central government’s decision to scrap the ‘no-detention policy’ for classes V and VIII marks a significant forward initiative towards creating serious and accountable teaching-learning in foundational elementary education. It will inculcate the habit of achieving promotion rather than receiving it routinely. For schools, it imposes sharper focus on refining teaching-learning practices, especially in these critical grades. By aligning classroom instruction with measurable learning outcomes, educators can support students in developing the discipline and preparedness required for academic success,” says Anirudh Sachdeva, Director of Holy Child Public School, Rewari.

Likewise Prof. R. Govinda, Distinguished Professor, Council for Social Development & former vice-chancellor NIEPA (National Institute for Education Planning & Administration) and  author of The Routledge Companion to Primary Education in India from Compulsion to Fundamental Right (2023), welcomes the re-introduction of primary and middle school exams and detention of students who fail their exams a second time. “No detention is not a new idea, it is the way education should happen. However, India has a serious problem of schooling without learning. Yet the fault is not of children, but of schools which must be improved and upgraded. If children are not learning, it’s because they are not being taught adequately. My advice to government is: improve your schools, improve teaching. That’s the basic prescription to address India’s  learning crisis,” says Govinda.

Yes. But improving and upgrading government schools requires greater budgetary provision. And as the imminent Union Budget 2025-26 is likely to prove, that’s an annual mirage.