The Government today said it was studying the report and recommendations of a sub-committee of Central Advisory Board of Education on 'no retention policy' in schools and would come out with a future plan soon on this.
In reply to a question in Rajya Sabha, HRD Minister Smriti Irani said many chief ministers as well as parents of children have expressed concern over 'no retention policy' in the education system and a debate is going on in this regard across the country.
She said the concerns relate to reduced learning outcomes and falling education standards in class 9 due to no retention policy upto class 8, and the government would soon chalk out a plan on it based on the sub-panel's recommendations on this.
To a question on poor infrastructure in schools raised by Satyanarayan Jatiya (BJP), the Minister said a number of new initiatives have been taken to improve the education standards and levels in schools which include 'Pade Bharat, Bade Bharat' and also under the 'Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan', Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan and the Mid Day Meal Scheme.
To a supplementary by Anand Sharma (Cong) on "drastic reduction" in budgetary allocations of such schemes, including Mid-day meal scheme, she said the Finance Minister has assured in Parliament that the scheme will be financially protected.
Irani said mid-day meal is not "a charity, but right of children". She said cooking mid-day meal was neither the job of teacher nor the students.
She also said while states were free to add nutritional value to the meals, the Centre too could look into the aspect.
Sharma objected to the Minister's remark that right to education was brought during the regime of Atal Bihari Vajpayee. He said the RTE came during the UPA government.
On the Sarv Shiksha Abhiyan, she said MPs should set up monitoring committees in each district and help contribute in improving educational standards through proper monitoring of implementation of central schemes.
To another supplementary from Veer Singh (BSP), she said, an analysis by a third party reveals that be it Kendriya Vidyalayas or Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalayas, their results are better than private schools.
She also cited the example of Narendra Modi, who rose to become the country's Prime Minister, after studying in a government school.
Citing the Unified District Information System for Education (UDISE) data for 2013-14, she said it reveals that national pupil teacher ratio is 1:26 and 94.14 pc schools have access to drinking water, 93.86 pc schools to toilets, 48.86 pc to electricity and 51.89 pc to play grounds at elementary level.
