THE GIST of Editorial for UPSC Exams : 19 JANUARY 2019 (Limits of class)

Limits of class

Mains Paper 4: Governance
Prelims level: No detention polity
Mains level: Highlights of the RTE Amendment Bill

Context

•  The RTE Amendment Bill, recently passed in Rajya Sabha, has again triggered the periodic debate between anti-detentionists votaries of No-Detention Policy (NDP) and detentionists.
•  The amendment allows states to decide whether to withdraw automatic promotion at the end of 5th and 8th grades, which is the point of contention.
•  Anti-detentionists argue that fear of failure causes stress and trauma and failure demotivates and pushes children out of system.
•  That stigma of failure mainly harms Dalit and tribal children.
•  They also argue that detention will weaken many other provisions of RTE, like admission in age-appropriate class.
•  And they raise the battle cry of “failing children does not make them learn” which is true and that no-detention is claimed to produce improved learning achievements.

RTE regulations norms

•  The term “class” is very important in the RTE.
•  The norms for teachers, teacher-pupil ratio, infrastructure and elementary education, are all defined in terms of class.
•  “Elementary education,” says the RTE “means the education from first class to eighth class”.
•  Regarding the admission of a child above six years, the act demands that “. he or she shall be admitted in a class appropriate to his or her age”.
•  The act is aware that such a child may not be at par with other children in the class, implying that class is associated with some standards of learning.
•  The act itself is “to provide for free and compulsory education to all children of the age of six to fourteen years”.
•  Reading this together with the definition of elementary education will give the duration of “class” as one year.

Establishment of an act

•  From these and other references to “class” in the act, it can be conclusively established that:
•  Duration of study in a class is one year.
•  A class has its specific curriculum in which learning expectations increase as the order of class increases. Three, that the school is organised class-wise.
•  Though the RTE does not say anything about textbooks, we do know that they are written class-wise.
•  Therefore, promotion to the next class is not a matter of age, but of learning achievements; implying that the very concept of class as used in RTE contains the idea of detention, if need be.

No-detention polity requirement

•  This happens because “no-detention” is introduced in a school system defined in terms of class; this is the first contradiction.
•  CCE demands that assessment should be continuous and it should feedback into pedagogy to help the child learn better.
•  Thus CCE, primarily, is not for promotion or its denial.
•  With age-appropriate admission and no-detention, children in any given class are bound to be at different levels of achievement, and if the CCE is to help every child learn, then it cannot be based on the same tasks and assessment criteria for the whole class.
•  But that is precisely the demand of class-wise teaching.
•  CCE on the other hand, demands individual attention in assessment and pedagogy.
•  Therefore, the class-wise structure of curriculum and school on one hand, and CCE on the other, pull the system in opposite directions.

Way out

•  There are two ways to resolve this contradiction
•  One, accept the true definition of class or grade, which is to complete a defined curriculum in one year, and detention on unsatisfactory completion.
•  Precisely what the government has done.
•  While this is retrograde and hardly improves learning, it resolves the contradiction in the teachers’ minds, and allows them to practice the age old authoritarian rigid system in its true glory.
•  The other way is to carefully work out the implications of a pedagogically sound CCE and take on the arduous task to reform the system to implement it.
•  That would require defining elementary education in terms of learning standards; organising curriculum as a free-paced learning path, and not boxed into classes;
•  It organising schools as ungraded heterogeneous learning groups, composed of children at various levels; and introduce the ideas of self-learning and peer group learning, a necessity to manage a heterogeneous learning group.

Conclusion

•  All this will require systemic reforms and to prepare teachers for this change through massive and serious in-service professional development.
•  This is the difficult path, but it does not contain internal contradictions, and may solve the problem of low quality.

Online Coaching for UPSC PRE Exam

General Studies Pre. Cum Mains Study Materials

Prelims Questions:

Q.1) The Asia-Pacific Institute for Broadcasting Development (AIBD) is a regional inter-governmental organisation established under the auspices of the:
A. World Bank
B. Asian Development Bank
C. UNESCO
D. World Tourism Organization

Answer: C

Mains Questions:
Q.1) The RTE Amendment Bill, recently passed in Rajya Sabha, has again triggered the periodic debate between anti-detentionists votaries of No-Detention Policy (NDP) and detentionists. Critically examine this statement.