Karnataka’ department of school education and literacy has decided to assess and evaluate children at grade five and eight before promoting them to next grade.
Minister for school education, B C Nagesh who met with officials on Thursday, said later in a media briefing that this proposed evaluation, however, would not be state level board exams. Instead, the department is contemplating exams at taluk and District levels to assess children’s learning levels.
Nagesh said that the proposal was in a nascent stage and that modalities of evaluation is yet to be determined.
“We are proposing to introduce evaluation for grade 5 and 8 kids in a year or two and the final order regarding this will be issued soon, ” said Nagesh.
The meeting also saw discussions pertaining the no detention policy. Currently, Karnataka is among the few states that follows a no-detention policy upto class 8.
According to sources in the school education department, several officials proposed that not having a prior evaluation of the child before grade 9 has adversely impacted board results overall. Nagesh, however, opined that an alternative to board exams where children will not have to be detained must be chalked.
Age bar
A recent government order directing that a child must be attained the age of six to be enrolled into class one in any educational institution will be implemented from 2025-26 academic year onwards, the minister clarified.
This previous government order had drawn a flak with parents of several children expressed angst that this age mandate would force their child to repeat one year in a lower grade.
Nagesh explained that so far, as many as 23 states have made it mandatory for the child to have completed six years to get into class one. He added that admitting children into schools at a very early age would only result on poor learning outcomes.