New Delhi: The Union government has notified the removal of the policy of not detaining students for those studying in classes 5 and 8 in schools run by it.
In its gazette notification on December 16, called ‘Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (Amendment) Rules, 2024’, it states that if a student does not fulfil criteria for promotion in Classes 5 or 8, they can be held back in those classes by a school.
As several reports noted, the Right to Education Act, 2009 had been amended to remove the no-detention policy in 2019. The Rules have been notified five years after the amendment.
“Since the National Education Policy [NEP] was announced in 2020, we waited for the National Curriculum Framework document which was published in 2023, before coming out with the Rules,” a senior education ministry official was quoted by The Hindu as having said.
While government schools can now be allowed to fail students in these two classes, “no student should be expelled from school until Class 8,” said Union school education Secretary Sanjay Kumar.
The 2023 ‘Beyond Basics’ survey by ASER had shown that overall, 86.8% of 14-18-year-olds were enrolled in an educational institution in India.
While there were small gender gaps in enrolment, notable differences are visible by age. Older youth are more likely to be not enrolled. The percentage of youth not enrolled is 3.9% for 14-year-olds and is 32.6% for 18-year-olds.
About 25% of the 14-18 age group cannot read a Class-2 level text fluently in their regional language, the survey found. More than half struggled with division (3-digit by 1-digit) problems using skills usually expected in Classes 3 and 4. A little over half can read sentences in English (57.3%).