Yuva sangathan protests AAP’s education policies

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, March 22

Activists under the banner of the Krantikari Yuva Sangathan (KYS) today accused the AAP government of shunting out students in classes IX to XII of formal mode of schooling if they fail to clear exams. Failed students are not being provided re-admission in order to produce “good” statistics, they claimed warning the government for intensifying protests against its “exclusionary” education policies in the coming days.

They said more than 66 per cent of the students are not being given another chance if they fail in grades citing reports stating that of around 1,55,436 students who had failed in the 2017-18 academic year 1,02,854 were not re-admitted to the same class.

According to KYS (Delhi) member Harish Gautam, a large number of students failing in government schools are refused re-admission and shunted out contrary to the Delhi government admission rules which state that the students have a right to seek admission in their schools if they fail.

Going by data submitted by the Department of Education  in the court, in Class X 42,503 students had failed the examination in 2017-18 while the number of students re-admitted was 3,812 indicating that 91 per cent of the failed students must have been out of the schooling system.

Similarly, in Class XII out of the 10,566 such students, 943 were re-admitted, said Harish while pointing out that the situation was not much better in classes IX and XI.

Of the 73,561 students who failed to clear exams in Class IX, 35,534 were re-admitted, while out of the 28,806 students failing in Class XI, 12,293 were taken back.

He said the government makes claims of having improved school education citing spurious statistics, but in reality it has continued to foster inequality in education.

The KYS alleges the AAP government publicises its efforts to open ‘Schools of Excellence’ in every zone of Delhi that “have handpicked teachers and up-to-date facilities, while majority of the students continue to languish in pathetic conditions or are being shunted out of formal schooling system”.

“The AAP government has also begun the policy of trifurcating the students according to their attainments. Students of the same grade have not just been divided into different groups based on their apparent learning ability, but weak students are also being taught a lower order syllabus and will be administered a different assessment from the so-called bright ones,” said Harish while being critical of the measure saying that it would promote a section of students while absolving the government of any responsibility towards the majority, who will fail and would be forced to take up vocational streams or leave their education.