Delhi Education Reforms Yield Mixed Results: High Failure Rates Prompt Policy Debate
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The recent changes in the Delhi education policy have been very controversial and under close scrutiny since the alarming failure rates among students have come out into the open for the academic year 2023-24. Reports have emerged from an RTI and statistical data from the DDE—Delhi Directorate of Education—via Rt.—that huge numbers of students in government-run schools failed their annual exams in different classes.
In Class VIII alone, 46,622 students failed, which is a very critical transition phase when the children prepare for more challenging times in education. It forms part of a larger trend of educational outcomes coming under closer scrutiny following the scrapping of the no-detention policy under the Right to Education Act, which ensures that before going to a higher class, the students should have a proper grasp of the fundamentals.
According to the revised ‘Promotion Policy’ of the Delhi Government, students who failed annual exams in these classes would no longer get automatically promoted to the next class. Instead, they get a second chance through a two-month long re-examination period. Students have to get a minimum of 25 per cent marks in each subject to pass. Those who fail to achieve this threshold are ‘repeat’ students, kept in the same class, repeating that grade until the next session.
The policy has had deep implications, very much so at ninth grade and eleventh grade, where the number of failures amounted to 101,331 and 51,914 respectively. These statistics reaffirm the fact that adjusting to new academic expectations and stringent conditions, as prescribed in the revised policy, is a difficult proposition for students at large.
Against the backdrop of these changes, educators, policymakers, and many other stakeholders have raised questions about the effectiveness of this policy in improving educational outcomes versus education for emotional well-being and successful educational trajectories for students. The debate continues on how best to support students in the mastery of academic content while guaranteeing its fair share of educational opportunities amongst the diverse student population of Delhi.
