Even though the State Minister for School Education KA Sengottaiyan has made it clear that the examinations will not be implemented in the ongoing academic year, the news has started a debate on the need for such examinations for students as young as 10 years old. Meanwhile the debate surrounding the latest proposal began when an amendment to the Right to Education (RTE) Act was introduced in the Parliament in 2017.
Furthermore the RTE Act, which was founded on the basic concept of uninterrupted education till the age of 14, prohibited the detention of students till they completed class eight. Reportedly this meant that students between class 1 and class 8 could go to the next grade without having to pass the exams. Moreover with the cancellation of the ‘no-detention’ policy in Indian schools, administrators could detain students between class 5 and 8 if they fail their exams.
Apparently the Amendment sought to introduce exams in class 5 and 8 and re-exams for students who failed to pass those exams. Recently Ashish points out those textbooks should be designed to promote learning and not rote-learning. He rues “The government schools in Tamilnadu probably have the best foundation for activity based learning. But, we are not taking full advantage of it, starting with the way textbooks are designed”.
