On the Right to Education Act - to detain or not to

When the Right to Education (RTE) Act was promulgated in 2009-10, the most talked about provision was 'no detention' of students up to Class-VIII. The philosophy behind this provision was to ensure that all students in the age-group of 6 to 14 years would not be deprived of education. As 25% seats were being reserved for students from the disadvantaged sections of the society, this provision was supposed to ensure that such students were not thrown out of the system due to their failure to cope up with it, coming as they were from a background which had no educated parents or additional teaching support. Furthermore, there was also a provision of age-appropriate admission. If a none year old was coming to school for the first time she had to be admitted to Class-IV. The school and the teachers were supposed to ensure that such students were brought at par with others. Sadly, this did not happen.

In reality, the states' education departments took some time to implement the lottery-based system for admission and ensuring reservation of 25% seats for the students from the disadvantaged sections of the society. In Chhattisgarh for instance, the lottery-based admissions could be implemented only with the 2015-16 academic session, though reservation at a lower scale was implemented without a pattern as schools invented ways not to implement reservation through excuses. We at Bhilai Steel Plant (BSP) had successfully implemented a lottery-based admission system immediately after the RTE Act was promulgated with effect from 1st April 2010. Since admissions had already been completed by then for the 2010-11 academic session, the provisions of the RTE Act were implemented from the 2011-12 academic session by BSP schools.

An important aspect of the 'no detention' clause was to ensure that all students were brought to a learning level so that they could move seamlessly to the next class through Continuous and Comprehensive Evaluation (CCE). Schools were supposed to run for six hours, with teachers spending the next 90 minutes coaching and guiding weak students. This did not happen. While the CCE required newer methods of evaluation, the untrained teachers merely retrofitted the examinations they were conversant with, with smaller tests. Lip service was the norm as far as training of teachers is concerned, that too in short measure.

So for an entire generation of students have passed through the system without detention. Somewhere down the line, the gullible young minds in their subconscious understood that they could move on without actually learning. That is what the advocates of the detention clause have been harking since the new government came in four years back. Hence the examinations at Class-V and VIII levels have been brought in. But without having teachers trained to look after the disadvantaged students, it is this category of students who will suffer the most. It is not about detention or no detention. Their right to education is going to be the first casualty.

P.S.: Views expressed above are personal, though they are drawn from personal professional experience in BSP's Education department.

When journalists jump ship

The case of Chandan Mitra who has jumped ship by moving from the BJP to the TMC is indeed curious. It is indeed intriguing that someone who has spent the best part of his life in Chandigarh as the editor of The Pioneer, been two-time Rajya Sabha MP from Madhya Pradesh, and could not win a Lok Sabha seat from West Bengal in 2014, has resigned because he was not able to do much for his state (West Bengal), as mentioned by him. This is political opportunism, and nothing else.

We have had prior examples of journalists jumping into politics like M J Akbar, who first joined the Congress and then the BJP; Rajiv Shukla, who first joined the Congress and then moved to the BCCI and the IPL, and whose example is being partly emulated by Rajat Sharma who had the BJP's backing in the recent DDCA elections; Arun Shourie, who was a vehement champion of Hindutva in his initial days in the BJP, and is now a vociferous critic of the present dispensation; to name a few.

What is worrying that each one of the illustrious scribes has tried to pull wool over the eyes of the readers by resorting to hypocrisy so typical to politicians.