Students' Learning Outcomes To Be Evaluated On 13 November
On Wednesday (16 August), Union HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar held a meeting with state governments leaders to talk about implementing a sample survey of learning outcomes and achievements of school students in India.
This country wide assessment of learning output of students will be conducted on November 13 in which 30 lakh school students will participate. Students of classes 3rd, 5th and 8th will be assessed by filling out an exam conducted on an Optical Mark Recognition(OMR) sheet. It is reported that 30 lakh government schools will be a part of this exercise.
This will be world's largest survey of students' learning achievements. It is being conducted to implement Rule 23(2) of the Right to Education(RTE) Act.
The National Assessment Survey or NAS which is being conducted since 2001 has been tweaked by the National Council of Educational Research and Training(NCERT) and will now test a student's competency instead of just basic knowledge of the school curriculum.
The National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) has drafted certain indicators for learning regarding several subjects like English, Hindi, Mathematics, Science, Social Science, EVS and Urdu. Based on these indicators, the states can finalize their own criteria.
With NAS earlier, only 4.5 lakh school students were being assessed across classes 3rd, 5th and 8th. Now with the implementation of assessing government schools in this manner, 30 lakh school students will be tested.
Earlier this year, the Union government had amended the Right to Education (RTE) Act that made it compulsory for all state governments to specify expected learning outcomes, which school students should be able to achieve in various subjects.
It is necessary to identify these learning achievements of students as these will help teachers to understand the competency levels of students and further improve these standards.
