LS passes bill to end no detention policy in schools

A bill to amend the Right to Education (RTE) Act to abolish the 'no detention policy' in schools was passed in the Lok Sabha today.

Replying to the debate in the Lok Sabha on The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (second amendment) Bill, 2017, Union Human Resource Development Minister Prakash Javadekar said that it will be at the discretion of the states whether to continue with no detention or not.

The states, he said, will decide at what level and who will conduct the examination, the minister said.

"It is a broken education system. We have to rebuild our education system," he added.

Under the current provisions of the RTE Act, no student can be detained till class 8 and all students are promoted to the next grade.

The minister said that in some of the states like Sikkim , Kerala and Telangana, the students ,who were studying in private schools, have come back to government schools.

"Teacher training, quality and accountability are most important," Javadekar said.

Stating that there was no shortages of teachers, the minister, however, added that the deployment of teachers was not right.

While moving the bill in the Lok Sabha, the minister said, "It is a very important legislation and a majority of state governments supported this Centre's proposal. It brings accountability in our elementary education system."