PMK founder S. Ramadoss on Sunday said the Centre’s proposal to amend the Right to Education Act to reintroduce the pass-fail system in classes 5 and 8, was ill-conceived and would lead to more students dropping out. It would also pave the way for child marriages, especially in poor families.
In a statement, Mr. Ramadoss said while there can an be no second opinion about increasing the quality of education in the country, the Centre cannot compare India with the rest of the developed countries and frame policies based on them.
“Before thinking of improving the quality of education, the government should first focus on bringing more children to schools. The noon-meal scheme is one of the ways to do that,” he said, adding that such an initiative itself had not been very successful.
“If you introduce a system of conducting exams and detaining students in fifth and eighth standards, at least 25% of students will stop coming to schools,” he said.
“In Finland, which is considered the country with the best education system, children are brought in to the school system only when they are seven years old and do not take any examinations till they are 13. Hence, they have the highest number of students joining college at 66%,” the PMK leader added.