Primary school students on their first day of school as offline classes begin for all the grades in Delhi, with strict Covid-19 guidelines at the Rajkiya Sarvodaya Bal Vidyalaya, in New Delhi on Monday. (Express Photo by Praveen Khanna/File) A countrywide National Achievement Survey (NAS) aimed at assessing learning loss among school students due to the disruptions caused by the Covid-19 pandemic will be carried out Friday, the Ministry of Education said.
In a statement, the ministry said the survey is expected to cover 38 lakh students in nearly 1.23 lakh schools in 733 districts across 36 states and Union Territories. Students of Classes III, V, VIII and X will be covered under the survey.
The last NAS was held on November 13, 2017. The primary objective of the last survey was to assess the competencies developed by the children at the grade levels III, V and VIII.
The next round of NAS “will help to assess the learning interruptions and new learnings during the Covid pandemic and help to take remedial measures”, the official statement said.
Schools across the country had gradually closed following the onset of Covid-19 in February 2020 and adopted the virtual mode. In some states, schools resumed offline classes by the end of 2020 but the second wave of the virus forced them to switch to online classes again.
Currently, in as many as 22 states and union territories, schools have been allowed to resume as the ferocity of the Covid-19 outbreak has ebbed.
NCERT has developed the framework to carry out the assessment under the latest round of the NAS, which will be held against the backdrop of alarming findings, including in government reports, on the stark digital divide that has disproportionately hit the learning outcomes of children coming from marginalised backgrounds.
The survey will be carried out by the CBSE in collaboration with state and UT governments. Government, government-aided as well as private schools will be covered under the survey.
“NAS will be conducted in Language, Mathematics & EVS for Classes III and V; Language, Mathematics, Science & Social Science for Class VIII and Language, Mathematics, Science, Social Science and English for Class X. The test would be conducted in 22 mediums of instruction covering Assamese, Bengali, English, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Manipuri, Marathi, Mizo, Odiya, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu, Urdu, Bodo, Garo, Khasi, Konkani, Nepali, Bhutia, and Lepcha. For smooth and fair conduct of the survey, 1,82,488 field investigators, 1,23,729 observers, 733 district level coordinators and district nodal officers separately and 36 state nodal officers in each state and UT, have been appointed. Also, 1500 board representatives have been appointed in the districts for monitoring overall functioning and ensuring fair conduct of the survey,” the ministry said in the statement.
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