Fail children who don't perform, says Haryana minister

'Schoolkids neglect studies as they're sure of promotion'

Haryana education minister Geeta Bhukkal on Thursday suggested a centralised testing system, and contended that the policy of not detaining students up to class 8 was counter-productive.

Presiding over the fourth meeting in Bengaluru on Thursday of the sub-committee of the Central Advisory Board of Education (CABE) to review the continuous and comprehensive evaluation (CCE) and “No Detention” provision under the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, Bhukkal said that “there should be at least two stages up to Class 8 where a non-performer could be detained till he or she attains the required level of learning up to that stage.”

“This provision is taking away the pressure to perform from the minds of both the children and the teachers. Hence, there is a lot of apprehension and anxiety among the parents with regard to certification of their children at different stages which was in existence earlier,” she pointed out.

“Children should not suffer from fear of examinations, but at the same time, the incentive to perform should not be taken away. High performance as well as no performance needs to be brought on record in some manner, which incentivises achievement motivation among children,” Bhukkal said.

She said that there is a need to have a mechanism to uniformly assess the level of learning at a certain stage through an independent testing or examining body, rather than leaving it entirely to the teachers who assess students according to their own perceptions and parameters, leading to promotions to the next class automatically, up to Class 8.

Bhukkal said that a four-year integrated course would be introduced in Haryana at teacher training institutes to improve the quality of teachers.

“As in case of other professions like doctors and engineers, one should have an aptitude to become a teacher,” she said.