What the FAQ: What is the National Achievement Survey and how will it benefit schools and students?

The National Achievement Survey will be conducted today in schools across the country. It is being faced with strong opposition from authorities who state that it is unfair to conduct it now since the schools have just begun and the students have missed over a year of schooling. Nevertheless, the Central Government has decided that it is going ahead with the survey. But what is the survey really about? How will it be conducted? All your queries are answered right here.

What is the National Achievement Survey (NAS)?
​NAS is a representative large-scale survey of students' learning. It is undertaken by the Ministry of Education. It provides a system-level reflection on the effectiveness of school education. Its findings help in comparing performance across the population to find desirable direction for improvements. The NCERT has developed the Assessment Framework to gauge the competencies attained by the students via learning outcomes. It is expected to go beyond the scorecard and includes the background variables to correlate a student's performance in different learning outcomes.

How will it benefit the sphere of education in India?
​This survey will help in assessing the learning interruptions and new learnings during the COVID-19 pandemic. Its findings would help diagnose learning gaps of students and determine interventions required in education policies, teaching practices and learning. 

What is the ambit of the survey?
​NAS 2021 is set to cover the entire spectrum of schools, including Government Schools of Central Government as well as State Government, Government Aided Schools and Private schools across India. It is expected that NAS 2021 will cover around 1.23 lakh schools and 38 lakh students across 733 districts of 36 states and Union Territories.

Pic: Edexlive, Bidushi Das

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What will the test consist of for the students?
​NAS 2021 will be conducted in: Language, Mathematics, and Environmental Science for Classes III and V, Language, Mathematics, Science and Social Science for Class VIII and Language, Mathematics, Science, Social Science and English for Class X. It will be conducted in 22 mediums of instruction including Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, English, Tamil, Kannada, Malayalam, Manipuri, Urdu, Marathi, Bodo, Mizo, Odia, Punjabi, Telugu, Garo, Khasi, Nepali, Konkani, Lepcha and Bhutia.

Who is conducting the survey?
​The instrument development, testing, finalisation of the test items, sampling of the schools etc. has been done by the NCERT. However, the actual administration of the test in the sampled schools will be done by the CBSE in collaboration with the respective states/union territories.

When was the NAS previously conducted?
​The previous National Achievement Survey was carried out on November 13, 2017, to assess the competencies developed by children at Classes III, V and VII.