Shailendra Sharma, Principal Advisor to the Directorate of Education in the Delhi government, talks to Samarth Bansal about the spirit of the RTE legislation and the need to define the meaning of education.
Supporters of the No Detention Policy (NDP) argue that scrapping the policy will lead to dropouts. What do you think?
True. Failing classes is a major reason students give for dropping out. If you want to guarantee Right to Education (RTE), then you have to keep kids in school. And if there is anything that leads them to drop out, then that should be tackled. But, making a law alone was never going to solve the problem. The spirit of the RTE Act was to get out of the pass and fail binary in the education system. And actually, the child does not fail. It’s the educators and the system associated with it that fails — the system was unable to teach. So, while nothing is wrong with the spirit and rationale of the policy, the problem is that our syllabus, pedagogy, and teacher’s orientation are all geared towards pass/fail binary, and that hasn’t changed, even with the introduction of the RTE.
But isn't that the reason why Continuous and Comprehensive Evaluation (CCE) was introduced?
Yes. the NDP and CCE are good on their own. But what did any State, or the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD), do to alter the classroom practice, curriculum and teacher-training systems? If you haven’t done any of these, you end up having the same pass-fail binary system. In such a situation, the teacher feels frustrated. Even the Bhukkal Committee and T.S.R. Subramanian Committee said that this policy is not working. There is a strong public opinion to drop the policy.
But then, dropouts will happen. Would the students then complete eight years of schooling as envisioned by RTE?
What is so magical about the eight-year thing? Have you given the “Right to Schooling” or “Right to Education”? Had this been the former, then retain the child. But if it is the latter, then education should happen, and one should define the meaning of education. Just keeping the child in school won’t help. Learning has to happen.
So learning should be the priority in RTE?
Yes. In fact, “quality education means learning” is a very new phenomenon. Before that, quality would mean good teachers, proper building, classrooms and availability of textbooks. If the relevant infrastructure was available, that implied quality education. Older debates on education are mostly around these inputs. And thanks to the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) and massive public spending on education, there has been a boost in education infrastructure in India. But questions are raised when students don’t learn even with inputs.
Where does Chunauti 2018 fit in with the idea of scrapping NDP?
Due to the NDP, there are children who have been promoted to Classes VI to VIII, but they can’t even read a basic text. One of the main features of Chunauti 2018 is that students of Class VI to VIII will be divided into two groups: Pratibha and Nishtha. For the Pratibha group, we will follow the prescribed curriculum along with supplementary learning material that has been designed to promote critical thinking. For Nishtha group, the focus will be on strengthening the basics. The regrouping will be done by baseline assessment. As the session progresses, students can be promoted from Nishtha to Pratibha group.
Delhi govt's Chunauti 2018 will help weak students strengthen their basics
“Delhi govt's Chunauti 2018 will help weak students strengthen their basics such as math and language”
