The importance of following ‘formative assessment’ for students in schools was highlighted during a session titled ‘Rethinking Assessment,’ organised by Chrysalis for principals and other administrative personnel from schools in Madurai on Friday.
Talking to the media about the initiative, S. Balasubrahmanian, Head - Educational Partnerships of Chrysalis, said that formative assessment focussed on enabling students to learn better as opposed to summative assessment, where the focus was on evaluating a student on a pre-defined benchmark.
He said that though the system of Continuous and Comprehensive Evaluation, on the lines of formative assessment, was brought in by the Central Board of Secondary Education, a majority of the schools had not implemented it properly.
“Though it is called CCE, what happens on the ground is pretty much the same as summative assessment,” he said.
Citing a survey conducted by his organisation, Mr. Balasubrahmanian highlighted that only two per cent of the teachers thought that assessments were about improvement and providing feedback. “For the remaining 98 per cent, assessments are about judging or evaluating children’s abilities,” he added.
Sundar Raj, Head - Corporate Communications of Chrysalis, said that his organisation, in association with Wipro Applying Thought in Schools, had surveyed more than 120 schools across the country and the final results of the survey to be released in a few months would throw more light on the challenges in moving towards formative assessment.
While highlighting the need for policy-level changes, he said that sessions similar to the one organised here were about pushing for the change from the school-level.
