AGARTALA: Despite disagreement on several provisions of Right to Education Act (RTE), the Tripura government has finally adopted the ‘no-detention policy’ up to class VIII from the coming academic year.
State Education Minister Tapan Chakraborty said here on Wednesday that after discussion in the meeting of Council of Ministers on Tuesday the decision was taken. It would promote about eight lakh students in government and government-aided schools.
Mr Chakraborty, however, pointed out that though the state government had strong objection in the provision of ‘no-detention’, the legal complication had insisted upon the administration to implement it, as there was no time for further discussion with the new session would begin from next week.
He apprehended that Continuous and Comprehensive Evaluation (CCE) at the school level for quality of education as per RTE, would not be possible in the state because of dearth of trained teaching staff besides infrastructure and monetary implications, which was ventilated in various forums.
The government had earlier demanded modification of section 16 of Right to Education (RTE), described no detention at elementary level, while asking the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) to extend reasonable time for implementation of the Act.
The state government had expressed fear in implementation of the provisions and said it might lead to less attention in the class regularly from both teachers and students.
”Preparing for lessons prescribed at different levels and finally appearing in test have become a convention but suddenly replacement of the practice by comprehensive and continuous evaluation (CCE) might not be effective because of inadequate infrastructure in northeastern states,” Mr Chakraborty pointed out.
Referring to the infrastructure inadequacy, he pointed out that there were 4635 recognised schools in Tripura of which elementary classes were attached to about 800 high and higher secondary schools. (UNI)