NAS 2021: 96% schools, 92% students participate; Results in form of report cards

NEW DELHI: The National Achievement Survey 2021 was successfully conducted on Thursday. Nearly 96% of the sampled schools and 92% of the targeted sampled children of Classes 3, 5, 8 and 10 from 24 states/UTs participated in the survey.

The results of NAS 2021 will be prepared in the form of district report cards, state/UT reports and national reports. "These NAS report cards will enable states and the Union Territories to identify gaps in learning outcomes and take remedial steps," as per the ministry of education.

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The government conducts the survey every three years. Last NAS was held on November 13, 2017, for assessing the competencies developed by the children of Classes 3, 5 and 8.

This year, NAS 2021 was conducted in 22 mediums of instruction as available in the sampled schools. There are 3 phases of NAS exercise, namely instrument development, sampling design and actual administration of the test.

NAS 2021 is the first achievement survey after the release of National Education Policy 2020 (NEP). NAS 2021 will infuse the competency-based assessment system over the content and memory-based assessment as envisaged by NEP 2020, as per the official statement.

The Covid-19 pandemic forced closure of schools has interrupted the learning in different levels and “there is an urgent need to evaluate children’s progress and learning competencies to analyze and examine the health of the education sector for taking necessary action at the district, state and national level.”

“The assessment focuses not only on cognitive learning but also other skills that children may have picked up, while being at home during the pandemic such as painting, cooking, photography, reading, gardening etc.” it added.

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“NCERT, being the nodal academic body, has done the instrument development, testing, finalization of the test items.”

To maintain impartiality, actual administration of the test in the sampled schools was conducted by CBSE in collaboration with states and UTs.

Besides student achievement tests, pupil questionnaires, teachers questionnaires and school questionnaires were also obtained to understand the various settings and perspectives of students, teachers and schools.

These questionnaires were conducted to understand the background, teacher training, rural-urban, effectiveness of online education etc to comprehend the education system.

“It will also help in the capacity building for teachers and officials involved in the delivery of education in the country. The result from the assessment would also provide a rich repository of evidence and data points furthering the scope of research and development,” the official statement read.