On May 25, Thursday, the Ministry of Education released the National Achievement Survey (NAS) report for the 2021 edition.
By conducting the comprehensive evaluation survey, the health of the school education system of India is assessed. Children’s learning competencies in Classes III, V, VIII and X are calculated.
An official statement issued in this regard said today: “The objective of NAS 2021 is to evaluate children's progress and learning competencies as an indicator of the efficiency of the education system, so as to take appropriate steps for remedial actions at different levels. It will help to unravel the gaps in learning and will support state/UT governments in developing long term, mid-term and short-term interventions to improve learning levels and orient on differential planning based on NAS 2021 data.”
A few highlights from the report
The average performance of students in all subjects declined as they were progressing from one class to another, noted the survey. For example, the average performance of students at the national level was 306 (in scaled score out of 500) in Math in Class III. It declined to 284 in Class V; 255 in Class VIII; and came to 220 in Class X, as stated in a report by PTI.
In the same way, when one looks at the national language score, it was 62 per cent in Class III, 52 per cent in Class V, 53 per cent in Class VIII.
In Class X, the language section was divided into two parts, modern Indian Languages and English, for which the national average remained 266 and 277, respectively.
The survey also noted that the performance of schools located in rural areas was “significantly below” those located in urban areas and union territories. Plus, the performance of Schedule Caste (SC)/Schedule Tribe (ST)/Other Backward Classes (OBC) categories was lower than students from the general category.
The average performance of girls was better than that of boys and when it comes to states, Kerala, Rajasthan, Maharashtra and Punjab performed better than the national average.
And the process followed was...
On November 12 last year, NAS was conducted throughout the country for Classes III, V, VIII and X.
About 34 lakh students of 1.18 lakh schools in both rural and urban areas in 720 districts participated in the survey.
The national mean score for all levels, that is, Classes III, V, VIII and X and even subjects was noted to be lower than the previous NAS which was conducted in the year 2017.
Government, government-aided and private — all three categories were covered by NAS.
When it comes to the subjects covered it was, for Class III and V, language, Math and Environmental Science; language, Math, Science and Social Science for Class VIII and language, Math, Science, Social Science and English for Class X.
The questionnaires, including pupil, teacher and school, along with achievement tests were developed plus translated into 22 languages by NCERT (National Council of Educational Research and Training). While the technology platform was designed and developed by National Informatics Centre (NIC), through which the survey was managed.
In order to capture student attainment of Learning Outcomes at the end of Classes III, V, VIII and X, an OMR based achievement test comprising of Multiple-Choice Questions (MCQs) was conducted. It assesses competencies and skills achieved by the students at different levels of school education through meticulously developed and field-tested items.
The report is based on the performance in all subjects through disaggregation by gender (female, male), Area (Rural and Urban), Management of schools (Government, Government aided and Private unaided) and Social Groups (Schedule Caste (SC), Schedule Tribe (ST), Other Backward Communities (OBC) and General.
Moreover, the survey was administered by CBSE (Central Board of Secondary Education) on one single day at the same time.
