National Achievement Survey to facilitate new strategies, policies

The Centre on Friday conducted the National Achievement Survey (NAS) 2021 across the country and as per the initial estimate from 24 states and Union territories (UTs), 96% of schools and 92% of the targeted sampled students participated in the survey, Union ministry of education said. Experts and educationists dubbed the survey as crucial for the post-pandemic era.

The survey, which assesses the competencies developed by the students at the grade levels of 3rd, 5th, 8th and 10th, is conducted after every three years. Around 3.8 million students from 1, 23,000 schools in 733 districts were scheduled to participate in the survey. “National Achievement Survey 2021 has been conducted successfully across the country, with the enthusiastic participation of schools and students. As per the initial estimates received from 24 states/UTs, nearly 96% of the sampled schools and nearly 92% of the targeted sampled children, of classes 3, 5, 8 and 10 participated in the survey,” the ministry said.

The survey was last conducted in 2017 and was scheduled to take place in 2020. However, due to the Covid-19 situation, it was postponed till this year.

This was the first time when private schools have been included in the NAS for grades 3, 5 and 8. Earlier, private schools were included for the class 10 NAS. The education ministry said that the survey will help to assess the learning interruptions and new learning during the Covid-19 pandemic and help in taking remedial measures.

“NAS 2021 is the first achievement survey after the release of National Education Policy 2020 (NEP). The assessment would be used to benchmark students’ learning against criteria such as process skills and learning outcomes. NAS 2021 will infuse the competency-based assessment system over the content and memory-based assessment as envisaged by the NEP 2020,” the ministry added.

Apart from students, subject teachers and school principals also participated in the survey on Friday. Tania Joshi, principal of the Indian School in Delhi, one of the centres, said, “There were questions like how did covid affect the education system and if we think that if the learning took a backseat because of online teaching. It also sought details about basic infrastructure and facilities at the school. The survey will be really helpful in making strategies and policies in the post-pandemic era.”

In Punjab, as many as 1,31,000 students from 3,722 schools were scheduled to take part in the NAS 2021. Officials said at least 7,000 students appeared for the exam in 208 government and private schools in Ludhiana district alone.

Officials in Tamil Nadu said that the survey was conducted in only some districts since most of the schools have been closed following heavy rainfall causing floods in parts of the state.

In Tripura, 95.25% of the 38,760 respondents in 898 schools turned up for the NAS, officials said. “We received good responses during the survey. Our observers and field investigators went to their respective destinations on Thursday, i.e a day before the survey. And the survey was done hassle-free,” said an official of SCERT of Tripura.

Officials in Assam said that the survey was conducted smoothly in the state. “In Assam, besides 74 CBSE schools, state-government run schools also took part. Since several of these schools are located in remote areas, the officials in those centres would be able to provide details of attendance only by Saturday. There was no online option of registering details of students or attendance. Hence the delay is expected,” said KK Choudhury, regional director at NAS control centre of CBSE’s Guwahati office.

In Chandigarh, officials said that around 90% of students turned up for the test on Friday. As many as 5,800 students from 106 schools were expected to appear for the test. “The schools had been open for classes for a while now so it wasn’t a big deal for students to come to school and take the exam. Over 90% attendance is expected,” a senior official said, adding they are yet to compile the final data.

In Uttarakhand, over 20,000 students in 2,630 schools took part in the NAS on Friday, said Banshidhar Tiwari, director general education of the state.

According to the Maharashtra SCERT, till 7 pm, various districts reported attendance of students between 91 to 95%. There were, however, 12 districts in the state which were yet to submit the data by the time this report was filed.

In Madhya Pradesh, 2,43,601 out of 2, 700,24 enrolled students across 9,499 schools took part in the NAS on Friday. “The NAS was conducted smoothly at all the schools. More than 90% of the students took the exam.” said school education department public relations officer Amitabh Anurag.

Meanwhile, in West Bengal, where schools have not been reopened yet, teachers said they witnessed several issues. “The timing of the test was not proper. Teachers were asked to come to school almost two hours before students arrived. The students were asked to report around 9 am. Some students and teachers stay very far from the school. They had great difficulty in reaching the school on time,” said Sandip Kumar Pal, an English teacher in Kolkata.

Educationist Meet Sengupta said that the survey will be crucial after the pandemic. “The NAS conducted after a tough year of pandemic lockdowns in schools will not be a measure that is useful for tracking education trends but it will help us in getting an understanding of the learning lag. It is, and should be used only as an outlier, not as a measure of the regular education system,” she said.