No-detention policy did less harm than it is accused of: IIM

The no-detention policy in schools, which is now being scrapped, has done less harm to learning than it is accused of, according to a study by Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad.
IIM researchers Ankit Saraf and Ketan S Deshmukh have submitted the study report titled "To Fail or Not to Fail?" to a Parliamentary standing committee as well as the panel that is drafting the country's new education policy.
"This finding runs contrary to assumption made by the researchers and propounded by many that under the detention system, the performance of students in a given grade would either improve or remain stagnant as they would necessarily need to meet or exceed the required levels of performance," the study says.

A provision in the Right to Education Act, 2009, the no- detention policy mandated the annual promotion of all children from Classes 1 to 8 regardless of their academic performance.
Several stakeholders have claimed the policy negatively impacted the performance level of students.
The IIM research is based on analysis of national data for 10 years in the Annual Survey of Education Reports (ASER).

"Implementation of the no-detention policy has not systematically lowered the learning levels of students. It has done less harm than what it is accused of," the study says.
Last year, the government introduced an amendment bill in Parliament to allow states to detain a child at the end of Class 5, Class 8, or both.

That bill is now with the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Human Resource Development.
Union Minister Mahendra Nath Pandey had said last July the government has decided to do away with the no-detention policy from the next academic session.
The decision was taken following representation from most of the states as they said the standard of education had deteriorated because of the policy, he had said.
"There has been a unanimous decision of withdrawing the no-detention policy from the Right to Education Act 2009," the Minister of State for HRD had said.