When the Right to Education (RTE) Act became reality, there was a sense of jubilation all around. Students and parents welcomed, in particular, the 'no-fail' clause: no child could be held back in any class or expelled from school till the completion of elementary education (till class VIII). But teachers are complaining that some students take advantage of this clause and do not study at all. The state government has heard the complaints and is looking at ways to make changes to the rule.

According to sources, the government has issued a circular to education officials, seeking ideas on the matter. "The new system may be that a student who does not fair well in a class will take a written test in April, failing which, he or she will take the test again in June. But it is the teacher who might have to make sure that the student passes. Thus, responsibility for the student's performance will shift to teachers," said an official.

"Even though CCE ( continuous comprehensive evaluation) ensures that students are evaluated throughout the year rather than through just written exams, students have started taking the written exams very lightly," said a teacher from a school in Andheri. "We try to ensure that this doesn't happen in our school, but keep coming across students who are least bothered about studies."

Though schools had welcomed most RTE clauses, many were opposed to the no-fail policy. With CCE in place, students are evaluated under two heads: formative (class work/presentations) and summative (written exams). The combined score is taken into consideration at the end of the academic year. "Students and teachers are easily getting adapted to CCE. Students also know that even if they don't score well in the summative part, they will score very well in the formative tests and pass with good marks," said Najma Kazi, principal, Anjuman-I-Islam Saif Tyabji Girls' High School, Byculla. She said she started remedial classes for students who were not fairing well in the summative tests. "Teachers in my school have been asked to hold these classes to ensure that students understand the topics well."

While most government officials refused to comment on the issue, a senior official told TOI that instead of simply promoting children to the next grade, extra attention needed to be paid to teacher training. "Blindly promoting students does not help to make the quality of education better. Teachers need to be accountable to students and ensure their progress," said the official. "Teacher training programmes need to be more interesting and must incorporate skill-improvement plans."