Why in news?

A recent report by PARAKH, a unit established within NCERT to standardize assessments across school boards, recommends that a student’s performance in Classes 9, 10, and 11—based on exams and continuous classwork—should contribute to their final marks at the end of Class 12.

This recommendation aligns with the National Education Policy and aims to ensure common assessment standards, develop capacity, conduct achievement surveys, and establish equivalence among different school boards.

What’s in today’s article?

• PARAKH
• Recommendations by PARAKH

PARAKH (Performance Assessment, Review and Analysis of Knowledge for Holistic Development)

• About
  • National Assessment Centre- PARAKH was set up in NCERT as an independent body in 2023.

• PARAKH team will consist of leading assessment experts with a deep understanding of the education system in India and internationally.
• PARAKH will eventually become the national single-window source for all assessment-related information and expertise, with a mandate to assist all forms of learning assessment, both nationally and globally.

• Objective
  • To fulfil the basic objectives of setting norms, standards, guidelines and implement activities related to student assessment along with other tasks as mandated by the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020.
• Four major areas of focus for PARAKH
  • Capacity Development in Competency-Based Assessment: Project Vidyasagar –
    • PARAKH is organizing workshops across India to familiarize educators with the new pedagogical and policy changes in the National Curriculum Framework 2023.
    • The goal is to bridge gaps in implementing competency-based learning and teaching.
  • Large-Scale Achievement Survey:
    • PARAKH conducted the State Educational Achievement Survey in November 2023, assessing students in Grades 3, 6, and 9 across 30 States/UTs.
    • The survey aims to monitor and assess educational competencies in foundational literacy, numeracy, language, and mathematics.
  • Equivalence of School Boards:
    • PARAKH is working to standardize examination reforms across all Indian school boards.
    • Regional workshops were held to collect data on administration, curriculum, assessments, and infrastructure.
    • A report was prepared, and national workshops were conducted to discuss and draft policy recommendations for equivalence. T
    • The goal is to allocate credit points to academic, vocational, and experiential learning.
  • Holistic Progress Cards
    • The Holistic Progress Card, or HPC, will no longer depend on marks or grades to evaluate a student’s academic performance. Instead, it will rely on a 360-degree evaluation.
    • Under the HPC model, the students will be regularly assessed through class activities where they are not just passive learners but active agents.
    • The activities will prompt students to apply diverse skills and competencies that will demonstrate whether they have been able to grasp concepts.

• Significance:
• Uniformity: PARAKH would be expected to address the issue of differences in scores among students associated with different boards, who are at a disadvantage during college admissions when compared to their CBSE peers.
• Standardisation: It will establish and implement technical standards for test design, administration, analysis and reporting at all levels of schooling.
• Skill development: It will encourage and help school boards to shift their assessment patterns towards meeting the skill requirements of the 21st century.

Recommendations by PARAKH

• Include performance from Classes 9, 10, and 11 in final assessment for class 12
  • Include performance from Classes 9, 10, and 11 in the final Class 12 report card, with a weight of 15% for Class 9, 20% for Class 10, 25% for Class 11, and 40% for Class 12.
• Evaluation using combined method
  • Evaluation should be a combination of:
    • formative assessments (continuous classroom assessments through holistic progress cards, group discussions, projects) and
    • summative assessments (term-end examinations).
  • In Class 9, 70% of the final score be drawn from formative assessments and 30% from summative assessments.
  • In Class 10, the final score will be based 50% on formative assessments and 50% on summative assessments.
  • For Class 11, it will be 40% formative and 60% summative assessments.
  • In Class 12, the weight for formative assessments will drop to 30% with 70% of the final score based on summative assessments.
• Assessments be in terms of credits
  • PARAKH has also suggested that the assessments be in terms of credits: a student can earn 40 credits in Classes 9 and 10 each, and 44 credits in Classes 11 and 12 each.
  • In Classes 9 and 10, 32 credits will be subject-specific (12 credits in three languages; four credits in mathematics; four for science, four for social science etc).
• Facilitate credit transfer in line with the National Credit Framework
  • Recommendations include that boards should develop a system of credit transfer in line with the National Credit Framework.