States to have final say on no retention in schools: Javadekar

Guwahati: The Union Cabinet will decide to empower state governments to have the final say on ‘no retention’ policy for their respective states, according to Human Resource Development Minister Prakash Javadekar who was here on Saturday to inaugurate a two-day Regional Workshop for North Eastern Region on Innovations and Best Practices in School Education.

He said 24 states had already opposed the ‘no retention’ policy proposed the HRD ministry in a recent meeting of Education ministers at New Delhi.

“There has been opposition from 24 states to this policy. They have maintained that this policy has affected quality of education and accountability of teachers, among other aspects,” Javadekar said.

He said the Union Cabinet will soon take a decision in this regard, empowering the states to decide for themselves whether they will implement the ‘no retention’ policy or not.

“For states which decide to go ahead with the practice of retention, they have to do so in class V or VIII only. Moreover, the students must be given two chances to clear the examination – first in March and again, in June,” he added.

The Union minister further said the model of ‘learning outcomes’ will be implemented across the country soon to set benchmarks of competency.

Stressing on the need to update the curriculum, Javadekar said, “The NCERT textbooks are now 10 years old. It is time to change the curriculum. We shall be soon asking for suggestions from the teacher community through our web portal to update the books.

Union Minister said that, the education was not only a relation of student and teacher. The parents, stakeholders, communities and society should be involved in the process of education as this would bring productivity and improvement to education.

He also advocated tightening the scrutiny of B. Ed aspirants and empowering students whom the aspirants teach as part of their practical lessons, to grade the former.

Representatives of all the North-eastern states of Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim and Tripura state Government Officials, Stakeholders, NGOs, Principals and Teachers were took part in the workshop.