The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government on Wednesday announced ‘Chunauti 2018’ — a major school education reform programme aimed at enabling students studying in government schools, especially in Class IX, to overcome the “problems being faced by them due to adverse effects” of the Centre’s No Detention Policy (NDP).
Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia, who also holds the Education portfolio, said the programme aimed at building “a strong foundation” among all students in reading, writing, arithmetic and bridging the gap between current learning levels and the academic demands of their class through “focussed practice and learning through worksheets”.
Quality of education
The Hindu was the first to report on Mr. Sisodia’s intent to announce what insiders had termed was a “significant paradigm shift” in the State’s education regime with the core aim of “enhancing the quality of education at government schools in line with international standards” despite “restrictions imposed by the Centre’s no-detention policy”.
According to Mr. Sisodia, the NDP, which came into force with the enactment of the Right to Education Act of 2009, had resulted in “widespread complacency and a general lack of accountability and responsibility in the system”.
This had prompted the Delhi government, like many other States, to strongly advocate the scrapping of the NDP. On December 16 last year, the Delhi Assembly passed the Right to Children to Free and Compulsory Education (Delhi Amendment) Bill, 2015, which recommends amendments in the RTE Act to scrap NDP.
No-detention policy
Mr. Sisodia said that since the Centre has “not taken any stand on the matter”, the Delhi government had decided to launch the reform measure on its own.
“Class IX students in Delhi face an unfortunate problem as a result of the NDP, since they appear for exams for which they are wholly under-prepared. The learning level deficit causes a disproportionate number of failures in Class IX. While the learning level deficit is not uniquely a Class IX problem, it is these students who become victims of a poorly administered system,” Mr. Sisodia said.
“The Delhi government is determined to not allow the careers and lives of these students to be scarred by failure for little fault of theirs. The idea behind Chunauti 2018 is that by the year 2018, all students enrolled in Class IX in the academic year 2016-17, regardless of their learning levels at this point, will be trained and mentored to successfully appear for Class X exams in 2018. No child will be left behind,” the Deputy CM added.
The policy, Mr. Sisodia said, envisaged working on multiple levels to correct this problem, including students who have failed twice or more in Class IX being provided the option of appearing for Class X exams through the Modified Patrachar Scheme of Examinations (MPSE).
The Deputy CM said that the MPSE was especially proposed to ensure retention of children and to minimise the possibility of drop-out.
The students will be taught by the usual teachers and will be provided usual benefits like books, uniforms etc and will be allowed to participate in all regular cultural and sports activities.
Regrouping classes
For all students from Classes VI to IX, the government has decided to regroup all classes based on a Base Line assessment, which will be conducted in the second week of July.
“The government intends for the weakest students to receive special attention from the best teachers, so as to bring them to the level of the rest of the class. The grouping of students based on their learning level is solely for the purpose of enabling the teachers to address the learning needs of different sets of children in a more systematic and effective manner,” Mr. Sisodia added.
The idea behind Chunauti 2018 is that by the year 2018, all students enrolled in Class IX in the academic year 2016-17, regardless of their learning levels at this point, will be trained and mentored to successfully appear for Class X exams in 2018. No child will be left behind
Manish Sisodia,Deputy Chief Minister
