The Centre has prescribed procedures to be followed by the states and Union Territories to hold back students in classes V and VIII based on competency tests, nearly six years after the Right to Education (RTE) Act was amended to drop the policy of continuous promotion.

According to a gazette notification by the department of school education and literacy, a child who fails to fulfil the promotion criteria shall be given additional instruction and opportunity for re-examination within a period of two months from the date of declaration of results.

“If the child appearing in the re-examination fails to fulfil the promotion criteria again, he shall be held back in fifth class or eighth class, as the case may be,” the notification states.

The class teacher shall guide the child and the parents and provide specialised inputs after identifying the learning gaps. The head of the school shall maintain a list of failed children and personally monitor their progress. No child shall be expelled till he completes elementary education.

“It is a retrograde step. It is not helpful for personality development and learning. This will discourage the students who fail. The whole experience will be negative. They will drop out and be deprived of the democratic environment in schools,” said Ashok Agrawal, a lawyer who fights cases on the violation of the RTE Act.