Academic rigour has its benefits, whatever lazy pupils may say. Seven years after the makers of educational policy in India decided that students should get promoted till Class VIII irrespective of their performance, the resultant indiscipline in academic life is showing up in the declining standards of learning. In May this year, 18 states asked the Union human resource development ministry to revoke the no-detention policy. Taking note, the Central Advisory Board of Education, headed by the HRD minister, Prakash Javadekar, has now announced its intention to review the topic and incorporate changes in the Right to Education Act. Although the CABE plans to bring back the system of measuring the learning outcomes of students at the end of each year, it wants to let the states decide whether they want to conduct examinations at the end of Class V or Class VIII. This display of flexibility by the HRD minister is promising, coming as it does after the dubious moves by the ministry in the recent past that had made it seem dictatorial, and worse, ignorant.

There are indeed several reassuring points about the CABE's recommendations that indicate that the suggestions have been made with practicalities in mind. For instance, Mr Javadekar pointed out that if a state chooses to do away with the no-detention policy and start holding examinations, it can only do so only in the academic session beginning in 2017. This is to the advantage of students, who have been at the receiving end of the series of flip-flops in the government's educational schemes. Mr Javadekar also stressed the need to get more trained teachers, thus drawing attention to the importance of accountability on the part of pedagogues. Education is one of the areas in which policy-makers behave in a most cavalier way. Education has also been increasingly politicized. Mr Javadekar's professed intentions may be defeated when the RTE Act goes to Parliament for amendment and politicians sniff out an opportunity to enhance their vote banks by supporting or opposing the changes. Mr Javadekar himself is playing it safe by saying that the CABE's proposals do not amount to a new policy as yet. If shilly-shallying and bickering delay the formation of an effective policy, students would have the government to blame in case they fail to get jobs on the basis of school certificates that hardly indicate their literacy levels.