Students of 3,000 CBSE schools in West Bengal to appear for learning test

KOLKATA: The Covid pandemic and the resultant paradigm shift in the education system have heavily impacted learning among school children, feels the Central Board of Secondary Education. To get an idea of how much the prolonged shutdown of campuses has had an effect on students and their learning process, the board will conduct a National Achievement Survey (NAS) on behalf of the ministry of education in November.
The survey will be in the form of tests to be conducted for children in classes III, V, VIII and X, that will assess their learning gaps and where. The survey will be held in select schools in each state, including 3,165 CBSE institutes in Bengal. In schools that will be selected for the survey, tests will be conducted on language, mathematics, EVS/science and social sciences. The schools selected in each state will be a mix of government, aided and unaided private institutes. The exercise will cover 1.24 lakh schools across 733 districts in the country. For In classes III and V, the test will be on language, maths and EVS, Class VIII children will be assessed on language, maths, science and social science, while students in Class X will be additionally tested in English. The mode of the test will be oral for junior classes and written for classes VIII and X.
A circular from the board has reached city school heads, though they are yet to know the names of the institutes that have been selected for the assessment. The document that the CBSE has drawn up on NAS says, “It will help in systematic understanding of the consequences that prolonged closure of schools have had on students’ learning in terms of their socio-emotional and cognitive development.” “We have received the circular and the details but are yet to know whether we have been selected for the survey or not. It is indeed a good move because kids have been silently impacted by Covid and we need to think of new ways of identifying the gaps and addressing them before it is too late,” said Meena Kak, director of Lakshmipat Singhania Academy.
City schools agreed that such an assessment was required because despite best efforts, through online lessons, teachers had not been able to reach out to every child and that some of them had developed serious lag. Heads of some schools felt online classes had outlived their utility and that classes on the virtual mode were stressing both kids and teachers alike, negatively impacting education.
The board is appointing coordinators who will, in turn, appoint school-wise coordinators for the survey. “School principals and vice-principals of selected schools will be the key persons we will be coordinating with. The exams will be centrally conducted but we will soon get further clarity,” said Vijaylakshmi Kumar, principal of Asian International School, who has been appointed as one of the coordinators by the board for NAS.
Loveleen Saigal, principal of Birla High School, said the board would get a snapshot of what students had learnt and would by the end of their respective academic years. “It needs to be quantified if learning objectives and outcome match because we have all gone through a difficult time. Since the exam will be for the entire class, it will be easy for the board to find out the percentage of a representative classroom has been able to cope with. It will also help devise future learning formula,” she said.