The National Achievement Survey (NAS) will identify learning gaps and quality interventions required in government and aided schools in Ernakulam district.
NAS, which aims at assessing the health of education system by weighing individual student performance, was held here on Monday. As many as 4,070 students of Classes 3, 5 and 8 in the district were assessed by the survey.
Initiated by the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT), the assessment was done for classes III and V in languages, mathematics, and environmental science, and in languages, mathematics, science, and social science for Class VIII. There were 45 questions for Classes III and V, and 60 for Class VIII in test form. The assessment time for each class was approximately two hours.
Field investigators appointed by the Sarva Siksha Abhiyan collected information on factors influencing learning and students’ contextual and school background information through three questionnaires — pupil questionnaire, teacher questionnaire and school questionnaire — as part of the survey.
SSA District Project Officer Sajoy George said students of 173 government and aided schools in Ernakulam had participated in the survey. As many as 526 teachers and 277 field investigators were engaged, he added. Of the 4,070 students who were evaluated on Monday, 1,357 belonged to Class 3; 1,370 to Class 5, and 1,343 to Class 8.
The objective of NAS is to find evidence on the competencies of students, factors behind the development of such competencies, and the changes in the developed competencies over the years and across classes. The findings will be used as inputs for policy, planning, and designing pedagogical interventions to improve students’ learning outcomes.
Experts will design and implement district-level pedagogical interventions to bridge identified learning gaps.
Besides, the authorities will ensure capacity building by training a team of State-level and district-level master trainers.
Pedagogical interventions have been planned for the current academic year. The outcome of the survey is expected to contribute to the improvement of the overall robustness of the country’s educational standards.
