Review of Right to Education Act

THE disappointment being expressed now with certain provisions of the Right to Education Act is only a confirmation of the apprehensions that were aired before its implementation two years ago. Union HRD Minister Kapil Sibal has constituted a panel to review the implementation of the Continuous Comprehensive Evaluation (CCE) provision under which school boards are not allowed to hold exams till Class 8, and schools are not allowed to detain any student in any class till then. The idea was to remove the ‘unhealthy pressure’ of education from the child and also promote holistic development. States say that while the pressure has been removed to such an extent that students as well teachers have stopped working, ‘comprehensive evaluation’ has eluded government schools that are in a shambles.

Sibal has told objecting state ministers that ‘no detention’ should not be equated with ‘no evaluation’. Rather, it has to be other forms of appraisal. That would indeed be desirable, provided it could be had. There are schools run with a single teacher. And the now-mandatory Teacher Eligibility Test has exposed the abysmal standard of teachers in government employment. Most teachers cannot even begin to comprehend the sophisticated assessment parameters required. Moreover, a major complaint is lack of clarity about what these parameters would be. While many private schools have devised ways to implement the CCE, teachers there too have the complaint that students have become careless. Some rod is required, whatever the form.
There is, however, nothing wrong with the spirit behind the CCE policy. Only our education system is probably yet to evolve to that stage. Also, the syllabus children are expected to master in the given time is probably way too much for comprehensive assimilation. Education should be a process of learning rather than imbibing mountains of information, which promotes the rote system. The solution in the short term would be to bring clarity on CCE parameters, and, in the long term, raise the education infrastructure to a level that ‘learning’ becomes possible. Santiniketan, after all, is not just a town in West Bengal, but a very Indian concept of education.