Karnataka has to pass legal test to hold assessments for grades 1-9

The Education Minister, Suresh Kumar after holding a meeting on conducting assessments on Monday told the media that a decision would be taken in a day or two. As the government has not properly implemented the learning process as prescribed in the act the decision to conduct exams would be a gross violation, say education experts.

According to the schedule in the RTE act the primary school children must undergo 180 days or 800 hours of learning process and high primary children 220 days or 1000 hours. And education being the fundamental right, these norms and standards to deliver quality education to the pupils should be obliged by the implementing and monitoring authorities which is the state government. The rules clearly say that the assessments can only be held to the children to gauge the learning outcome after following the norms for learning.

However, the primary children, 1-5, studying in government school have not all participated in the learning process, while higher primary school children were engaged partially. This means as per the RTE act conducting assessment violate the prescribed norms. In the private schools the management is claiming that they had conducted online classes, but what kind of data the government has to corroborate as section 8 of the act clearly says that it is the responsibility of the state to ensure delivery of quality education in all schools including private funded institutions.

V P Niranjanaradhya VP, senior fellow, Centre for Child and Law, National Law School of India University pointing at the rules said any attempt by the state to conduct assessment is violation of the law and it will be legitimising the violation which can be easily challenged in the courts. The state has failed in its primary obligation and now they have to proactively address the gap before assessments. And even after assessment if the children require remedial learning sessions that also have to be conducted.