Nishikant Khajuria
JAMMU, Sept 17: Deterioration in the quality of education has forced the State Government to review its policy of ‘No Detention’ at elementary level as poor learning levels of the J&K students, who reach class 9th without detention, at bottom in national and State specific studies on academic standards.
Henceforth, SIE will conduct T1 and T2 exams, with external evaluation under its overall supervision, from class 5th to 9th while J&K Board of School Education will conduct T2 exams of class 11th even as the evaluation will be supervised by the SIE and Cluster Principals will supervise assessment, evaluation and remedial teaching.
On the basis of performance in T1 and T2, students from class 5th to 8th-will be detained on provisional basis with arrangement for special remedial teaching of 2-3 months during vacations/ beginning of next session by reassessment by SIE for grade appropriate competencies. In case of inability to meet the qualification criteria in such a reassessment too, the student will be detained.
Also to do away with detention at class 9th i.e. entitling all the students who take admission in class 9th to appear for the Class 10th Board exam, the school will make arrangements for remedial teaching on the basis of performance in T1 and T2 exam, and will have the facility for seeking reassessment evaluation.
According to an order in this regard by the School Education Department, order number 338-Edu of 2016, dated 16-09-2016, it has been further decided to standardize summative assessments, i.e. T1 and T2, with external evaluation, in all classes from 5th onwards and to establish appropriate linkages between students’ performance and incentives/disincentives to teachers as also reflection in their annual assessment criteria and career progression.
Pertinent to mention that `No Detention’ Policy has resulted in a completely unintended outcome of promotion of children to the next class without due efforts being invested in addressing their shortcoming and achieving appropriate learning levels, which ultimately get compounded to unmanageable proportions by the end of elementary education.
As per National Achievement Survey (NAS) 2014, J&K State remained at 32nd position out of the total 34 States and the Union Territories by scoring 56 percent in language assessment while in Mathematics, the State figured at 30th position by scoring 61 percent.
In the NAS 2015 for class X, 73 percent J&K children had scored in English test less than 50 percent while in Mathematics, 87 percent children scored below 50 percent and in Science, 85 percent students obtained less than 50 percent scores.
Further, `Lakhoun Mein Ek’ survey (2015) by PRATHAM, in J&K, indicated that 22 percent of the children in class 8th, cannot read Standard 2 English test and 20 percent of class 8th children can’t solve Grade 2 Maths problems.
During course of discussion on the `New Education Policy’ `No-Detention’ of a child at elementary level was considered as one of the principal reasons for deterioration in the quality of education,
All stakeholders held an opinion that the present system of allowing the child to reach class 9th without any detention irrespective of performance in examination, has resulted in lack of motivation to perform amongst students along with poor attendance and indiscipline. Even for teachers, in absence of evaluation of their performance resulting in lack of quantification of their achievements, No- Detention policy has proved to be discouraging, they observed.
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