Unit 3: Trends and Issues of Assessment
a) Continuous and Comprehensive Assessment (Meaning, Characteristics and Significance)
b) Internal Assessment and External Examination (Meaning, Significance and Problems related to
planning, conduct and assessment)
c) Psycho-social concerns of Assessment (Implications)
No detention Policy (RTEAct, 2009)
Competitive ranking of schools
Profiteering by private agencies
No detention Policy
Parliament on Thursday empowered states to detain weak students in the same class if they
fail to pass annual exams. ... After the introduction of the RTE Act in April 2010, students
between Class I and Class VIII could be detained irrespective of their learning standard.
As per the No-Detention Policy under the Right to Education Act, no student can be failed or
expelled from school till the completion of elementary education covering classes 1 to 8. ... The
essence of the policy is that children should not be 'failed' and detained up to Class 8.
The features of the No detention policy are: The no detention policy was introduced in the Right of
Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009. The act prohibited schools from detaining
students till they complete elementary education. The no detention policy banned the practice of
making under-performing children repeat classes in elementary school to ensure they do not drop out.
The no detention policy was brought in to reduce the emphasis on year-end examinations and replace it
with a form of evaluation that would track students’ progress through the year.
PRIVATE PROFITEERING
Arguing that the creation of new avenues for profit maximisation was one of the features of
contemporary imperialism, the latest issue of the CPM weekly People's Democracy claims that the
public-private partnership (PPP) model is being used as a tool to facilitate private profit maximisation.
"Attracting private capital with opportunities for adequate profit to build public assets and
infrastructure is necessary for India's economic development. But to place public assets for private profit
maximisation is an entirely different concept. By doing this, the Planning Commission itself is planning
the demise of economic planning in India," it says.
The article alleges that PPP projects in the infrastructure and social services sectors have resulted in the
"jacking up" of user charges. It also claims that governments at the Centre and state are willing to pay
private educational institutions huge sums to admit students from weaker sections of society, rather
than spending a fraction of that amount to start schools and colleges. Citing the Right to Education Act
as an example, it says that "while the elite schools may be unhappy, the budget private schools would
make a windfall profit... universal Right to Education, international experience shows, can never be
achieved without (a) wide network of state-run neighbourhood schools."
