Detentions mainly due to tendency of schools to ensure better pass percentage at SSC exams
PANDURANG GAONKAR
PANAJI
Passing SSC has traditionally been a milestone for students but clearing Std 9 has become an even bigger hurdle in recent times, given the high detention rates in the State.
Even though the pass percentage of students in the SSC exams have ranged between 90% and 91% in the last three years, the number of students detained in Std 9 has been a staggering 9,000-11,000 during these last three academic years.
The no-detention education policy has left a large number of Std 8 students getting promoted to Std 9 with little difficulty, but thousands of them have been struggling to clear the Std 9 and get promoted to SSC.
For instance, in the last academic year, there were 29,437 students who got promoted to Std 9, but only 20,359 were subsequently promoted to SSC, leaving 9,078 students detained in Std 9. Incidentally, only 19,596 students appeared for examination as 655 students were repeaters in the SSC exam.
According to sources, the high detention in Std 9 is due to various factors and one of them has been the tendency of schools to detain weak students in Std 9 to ensure a better pass percentage at SSC.
“Little efforts have been made to arrange extra classes for these weaker students, to enable them pass Std 9 and move to SSC. With the policy of passing students till Std 8, teachers need to have Continuous Comprehensive Evaluation (CCE), so that students do not face difficulties moving from Std 9 to SSC,” remarked a source.
The source also added that students have taken passing for granted till Std 8, leaving them unable to cope with the possibility of failure in Std 9.
When contacted, an academician Dr Sanjay Dessai said teachers, students and policy makers collectively have a crucial role in ensuring the reduction of these detention rates in Std 9.
“Due to no-fail policy, students are promoted up to Std 8 and they are detained by school at Std 9 to get good results at SSC.”
“It looks like the students who are detained at Std 9 are not serious about studies, so schools are not promoting them. The main cause of this problem is failure to implement the no-fail policy properly,” said Dr Dessai.
“Under Right to Education Act, Continuous and Comprehensive Evaluation (CCE) process of assessment was mandated and that is required for successful implementation of no fail policy.”
“Under that system, weaker students are to be upgraded with additional/remedial teaching, but sadly our teachers and policy makers have failed in successfully implementing the no-fail policy,” he added.