'Learning outcome' rules to become part of Right to Education Act

Union Human Resource Development Minister Prakash Javadekar on Wednesday said rules defining "learning outcome" to assess the performance of students at the end of an academic session will become a part of the Right to Education Act by March next year.

Speaking at the 'Agenda Aaj Tak' event here, Javadekar announced reintroducing compulsory Class X board examination for the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) affiliated schools from 2017-18 onwards.

"We have defined learning outcome in the last few days and it will be finalised in the next one month. By March next year, learning outcome will become part of rules of the Right to Education Act."

"The learning outcome will set the benchmark for the performance of the students after the completion of each year and will come to force from the next academic session (2017-18)," said Javadekar.

"The learning outcome would help assess the students' capacity and performance and improve the standards of education. They will assess what should be a student's reading and writing ability and mathematical ability," said the minister.

The decision to codify learning outcome and incorpoarte it in the RTE Act was taken during the 64th meeting of the Central Advisory Board of Education (CABE) here on October 25.

The CABE, the country's highest advisory body on education, had recommended allowing the states to take a call on on the no-detention policy under the RTE Act and conduct exams at Class four and Class eight levels.

"While we have agreed to let the states decide on whether they want to conduct exams, but we have set two conditions -- the exams can only be held in Class four and Class eight and in case a student fails then a supplementary exam should be held to ensure that the student does not lose a year," said Javadekar.

He also said it was wrong to not allow CBSE students to appear for the Class 10 board exams.

"We have also decided to reintroduce Class 10 board exams by the CBSE. Today, 2.30 crore studnets appear for Class 10 board exams across the country but 20 lakh CBSE students don't appear for the exams. This is wrong, so we have decided to get back into examination mode," added Javadekar.

--IANS

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