CM Suvendu Adhikari in East Midnapore’s Ramnagar
Kolkata: CM Suvendu Adhikari said on Sunday he personally favoured restoring the pass-fail system in state schools, but clarified that any decision would be guided by National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 and the recommendations of Bengal’s syllabus committee. The erstwhile Left Front govt had in 2010 adopted a no-detention policy till Class 8 in line with the right to education act, which came into the effect the previous year. NEP provides for academically weak students in Classes 5 and 8 to repeat a year, but the policy was not implemented in Bengal when Trinamool Congress was in office. Tarunkanti Naskar, member of All India Save Education Committee, said the pass-fail system needs to be reintroduced right from Class 1. The Trinamool govt had in 2019 initiated discussions on bringing back the detention policy, but it did not materialise.
Instead, the Mamata Banerjee administration introduced a Continuous and Comprehensive Evaluation system featuring three summative exams and an assessment of holistic development through a comprehensive report card.
The syllabus committee, which was reconstituted after BJP came to office in the state, supports reintroduction of the pass-fail system in schools and will formally take up the matter in a meeting after the festive season, sources said. Syllabus committee chairperson Debashis Chatterjee said, “We have called a meeting to discuss these matters. We demand that RTE Act be amended to bring back the detention policy,” he said. However, Sabir Ahamed, a researcher associated with Pratichi Trust, said, “The govt should upgrade school infrastructure, fill vacant teaching posts and create an environment conducive to joyful learning rather than adopt measures that could increase the dropout rate. Ritwick Mallick, a member of the previous syllabus committee, said, “We couldn’t implement the pass-fail system because many schools manipulated marks.”
I do feel proper screening is very important, but we need to discuss the modalities before reintroducing detention at the school level. “Students are struggling to learn reading, writing and arithmetic. The pass-fail system has to be restored to improve the academic standard. Both central and state govts are only issuing statements, instead of implementing the policy. Critics, however, say that despite these efforts, students’ progress remained below par.