The National Policy on Education, as revised in 1992, had emphasized the need for a substantial improvement in quality of education to achieve essential levels of learning.The Programme of Action, 1992, stressed the need to lay down Minimum Levels of Learning at Primary and Upper Primary stage.
Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) includes several features that seek to improve the quality of elementary education, (a) ensuring basic provisioning to enable improvement in the quality of classroom transactions; (b) large scale capacity building of States, for undertaking interventions for quality enhancement; and (c) evaluation of quality related processes and assessment of learning outcomes.
Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan will make efforts to take a holistic and comprehensive approach to the issue of quality. Efforts to decentralize the whole process of curriculum development down (grassroot level) to the district level will be made. Some guiding principles in curriculum and evaluation reform will be as follows:
Important Initiatives to improve learning outcome at elementary level have been listed below:
NCERT’s guidelines talk about ‘Reflective Teaching’ which requires teachers to be ‘mindful enquireres’ into their own experiences, to guide children meaningfully.
No Detention Policy
In India, children in the age group of 6-14 years have the right to free and compulsory elementary education in a neighbourhood school under the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act, 2009.This covers primary (classes 1-5) and upper primary (classes 6-8) levels, which collectively constitute elementary education.
Amongst several provisions focused on elementary education, the Act provides for the No Detention Policy.Under this, no child will be detained till the completion of elementary education in class 8. The RTE (Second Amendment) Bill, 2017, which is yet to be passed by Parliament, revisits the No Detention Policy.
What is No Detention Policy?
The rationale for the No Detention Policy or automatic promotion to the next class is minimising dropouts, making learning joyful, and removing the fear of failure in exams. The evaluation mechanism under the Policy is the Continuous and Comprehensive Evaluation (CCE) for holistic assessments (e.g., paper-pencil test, drawing and reading pictures, and expressing orally) as opposed to the traditional system of examinations. CCE does not mean no evaluation, but it means an evaluation of a different kind from the traditional system of examinations.
What does the RTE (Second Amendment) Bill, 2017 propose to do?
The Bill proposes a ‘regular examination’ which will be held in class 5 and class 8 at the end of every academic year. In the event that a child fails these examinations, he/she will be given remedial instruction and the opportunity for a re-examination.
If he fails in the re-examination, the Central or State governments may choose: (i) to not detain the child at all, or (ii) to detain the child in class 5, class 8, or in both classes.This is in contrast to the current Policy where a child cannot be detained until the completion of class 8.