Delhi government moves to bring back detention policy

The Delhi government has moved to bring back provisions to detain students in their grades, doing away with the no-detention policy which has been in place for children up to class VIII.

The Directorate of Education Friday notified that the Delhi Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Rules 2011 have been amended to this effect. “In exercise of powers conferred by Section 38, read with sub-section 3 of Section 16 of Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act 2009, the Lt-Governor, hereby, makes the rule to amend the Delhi Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Rules 2011. The rule may be called the Delhi Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (Amendment) Rules, 2020. In the Delhi Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Rules 2011… the following rule shall be inserted namely: 21A. The manner and conditions subject to which a child can be held back under sub-section (3) of section, will be notified by the Government,” states the circular.

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It will come into force after it’s notified in the gazette. The government will release the manner and conditions in which a child can be held back in his or her class.

The Right to Education Act introduced the no-detention policy up to class VIII in 2009. As per this, children were to be automatically promoted, with detentions not being permitted. In 2019, the no-detention policy of the RTE Act, amended through a parliamentary bill, stated that a child who fails a regular examination at the end of classes V and VIII will take a re-examination. The relevant central or state governments were asked to decide if they will allow schools to detain children who fail the re-examination. Amend-ments in Delhi’s policy were cleared that year by the state government. However, the implementation of this rollback has been stalled so far.