Education, Examination and NAS 21.

Prof. Avijit Pathak, retired Professor, JNU wrote an article in the Indian Express dated 20^th August which is an eye-opener even for the most optimistic people in the world. The title of the article was very interesting “CUET is not KBC”. Through this article, he suggested that VCs, teachers and students should come together and say no to MCQs in the entrance examination for universities, especially CUET(PG). He cites the example of JNU VC, Professor Shantishree Dhulipudi Pandit`s discomfort which she expressed while speaking at an idea exchange with Indian Express. When Professor Pathak says that CUET is not KBC, he means that the entrance to colleges and universities should not be based on one correct answer out of four or five options by mostly ruling out the wrong answers. I wrote in my earlier articles also that MCQs are not good options in assessing the understanding level of different concepts and creativity. This is fine to be as objective as possible in your evaluation but MCQs do not leave options for the teachers or the students to express themselves completely. Some may argue that conducting subjective type examination takes a long time as the number of aspirants for admission to professional colleges and universities is in the millions. That is true but should we focus so much on examinations? If we try to analyse the number of days spent (I would say wasted) by students and teachers taking away maximum energy and time, it is this phase of the examination. The focus should be on teaching and learning than the so-called cracking exams. There are many educational institutions which came up with innovative ideas for assessment/evaluation to be done during classroom interactions. Unfortunately, it did not work as was expected because in our country formal exams and marks are still the most important achievements in the life of students, even when they try to get a job. I remember a statement by Ms Mahima Vashistha, the former civil servant working for women’s empowerment, talking at length about her being good in academics but at the same time her involvement in extracurricular activities was also equally important for her. While she was doing her MBA from IIM Bengaluru, the candidates were not graded based on their achievements but on how the others had faired, so her rank and position were based on somebody else`s performance. Then she talks about her journey of getting into civil services and so rightly articulated that all those who appear in this most coveted exam conducted by UPSC to select personnel who would be future IAS, IPS, IFS and approximately 20 more allied services, want to become IAS meaning thereby to be future collectors, some may think of becoming IFS and then IPS (if did not get high rank). Now the pertinent question is, does the system (civil services exam) try to find out about the aspirants of other branches like accounts, income tax, railway services, publicity department excise etc? The answer is ‘NO’. Those who get lower ranks are placed in different services without knowing whether they have any attitude or aptitude in that or not, and they remain there for the rest of their life without any excitement except that they have a permanent government job and fixed increment and salary over next 25- 30 years (up to retirement age). For a change, the present government has brought in people from other services and given them responsibilities which were always assigned to IAS only. What I am trying to focus on is that examinations do not always measure your strength other than academics which is just part of your wholesome personality. Academics might help you get a job but not necessarily a job/ profession of your passion and satisfaction. Then what should be done, should we have no exam policy? Nobody says that but the pattern of exams needs to be revamped. NEP talks about a lot of revolutionary steps to be undertaken in school and university education. For doing all this we need teachers who will take up this very important task. The school education is to be made children-friendly and not only focus on numeracy and linguistic accuracy. We need to create respect for all educational institutions so that the dependency on a few so-called elites is done away with. I know this is an uphill task but needs maximum attention. The habit of measuring everything in numbers would have to be curtailed.

Now I come to a point which was in news quite a lot regarding the educational institutions of Delhi being talked about in the world. The report in the New York Times was on news channels for many days. I agree that there would have been an improvement but to say that the system was the best in the world and education ministers of the world nations wanted to follow suite, was a little hyped (not little but really too much).

When I explored the NCERT site and found out result of the NAS 21 survey posted there, it gave me a reason to go through the same and see how the students of different states had performed. For the knowledge of those who do not have much idea about NAS, I would like to mention it in brief. National Achievement Survey is a National Level large-scale assessment conducted to obtain information about the learning achievements of students of classes 3,5,8 & 10 studying in State Govt schools, Govt aided schools, Pvt schools and Central Govt schools. NAS doesn’t provide scores for individual students/schools. NAS findings help compare the performance across the country which may serve as input to move in the desired direction and areas for remedial intervention. The 1^st edition of the National Assessment Survey was carried out in 2001 and the latest was conducted in November 2021. NAS 2021 was conducted in Language, Mathematics and Environmental Studies for classes 3 & 5; Language, Mathematics, Science and Social Science for class 8^th and modern Indian Language(MIL), Mathematics, Science, Social Science and English for class 10^th.  The NCERT was responsible for the task of developing the assessment framework and the execution of NAS 2021 was entrusted to CBSE. Grade-wise subject-specific learning outcomes were identified by NCERT for the development of the items of assessments. In the State and district, school level sample based on UDISE 2019-20 data, nearly 3.5 million students from approx. 1.18 lac schools were surveyed. Around 2 lac field investigators, 1.24 lac observers, 36 state nodal officers, 733 district-level coordinators and district nodal officers were engaged. The data for NAS 21 was collected from around 34 lac children and more than 5 lac teachers.  In addition to this, board representatives were appointed for ensuring the fair conduct of NAS 21. Out of 733 targeted districts, NAS was conducted in 720 districts except for some districts of Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh due to some natural calamities.

As Delhi was the trigger point for this article so I took data from eight States/UTs, namely- Delhi, UP, Tamilnadu, Bihar, Kerala, Chandigarh, Punjab and Rajasthan. The parameters I considered were overall achievement at the national level and then at the state level. Then I looked at performance based on gender (boys and girls), management (Govt schools, Govt aided schools, Private schools and central government-run schools and location (Rural and urban). In Rajasthan and Delhi, the percentage of boys (who took this survey) was more than girls in all four classes while in Kerala and Tamil Nadu, the percentage of girls was more than boys. In UP, it is almost the same percentage except for class X, in which more girls participated. In Chandigarh, more boys were there except in class V. In Bihar, more boys in classes III, while girls were more than boys in classes VIII and X. The survey also gives a fair idea about the learning outcomes expected to be attained by the students in different subjects and different classes. Overall state`s mean and the percentage of the children who fell in the category of proficient and advanced level is also an indicator of the quality of education. On all these parameters Delhi state does not come out to be even close to the number stated as far as the achievement of the students is concerned. Interestingly, Punjab comes out to be number one and Delhi number eight (out of eight states/UTs taken as the sample from the survey). They cannot claim for Punjab`s performance because this party came into power after the survey was conducted (that time party in power was different).

 The location-wise participation data is mentioned in Table 1:

 

In Delhi, almost all the students were from the urban area while in TN, UP, Bihar, Kerala and Rajasthan nearly 75% or more are from rural areas. In Punjab, it is equally divided. Location was of great importance to me because this survey was conducted in the midst of the pandemic. This is to be understood that there was a huge gap in terms of the facility for online classes when the schools were not physically functional. The children of the rural area were at a great disadvantage as compared to students of the urban area.  

Table-2

Average performance of students( score out of 500)

The national average in different subjects and classes is compared with the average of the states. In this also it is found that Punjab tops in three classes while Chandigarh tops in class X. Delhi remains either at the last position or 4^th/5^th.

Table-3

·          *means average and below average

·          ** means proficient and advance

 

The table above depicts the overall state average, level of achievement (average or below average, Proficient and advanced)

 

Table-4

Table-5

Table-6

Table-7

If we look at the above tables (4-7) which depict the performance of the children at proficient and advanced level, it is observed that in all classes (Delhi) performance of private schools and central Govt run schools is better than the Govt run schools. In the case of Punjab and Rajasthan, in most classes and subjects, Govt run schools have performed much better than private schools.

The tables below (8-11) showcase the performance of the children based on the percentage of the correct answer. The result is almost similar to what it was for proficiency level.

Table-8

Table-9

Table-10

Table-11

This whole exercise was to compare the performance of students based on different parameters which have been shown in different tables above. Another important aspect of children`s progress is how many learning outcomes are achieved by what percentage of the children.

In class 3, twenty-four LOs were assessed, in class 5, twenty-nine, in class 8, fifty-five and in class 10, thirty-six. In class 3, at the national level, the number of LOs in which 50% or more children were found competent was twenty. In the case of Punjab, this was 24, Rajasthan 22, Kerala 21, TN 20, Chandigarh 19, Bihar 18, UP 17 and Delhi 11.

In class 5- at the national level, eight out of twenty-nine. In this class, Punjab is 24, Rajasthan and Chandigarh 22 each, Kerala 10, Bihar 6, Delhi 5, UP 4 and TN 3.

In class 8- at the national level, three out of 55. Here, Punjab is 25, Raj and Chandigarh 23 each, Delhi and Bihar 4 each, Kerala 3, UP 2 and TN 1.

In class 10- at the national level, only one out of thirty-six learning outcomes was achieved, which is a concern.

In this, Rajasthan 15, Punjab 13, Chandigarh and Delhi 5 & 4 respectively and Kerala 1. In Bihar, UP, and Tamil Nadu in no learning outcomes, 50% or more children could excel.

Based on the data available Punjab seems to have outperformed by a huge margin. Interestingly, the state of Rajasthan has done very well rather better than the much-hyped state.

Another startling observation is that the performance of the students in NAS and their class X board results do not match. For example, the central Govt run schools, like KVs and JNVs perform very well in board exams but in this, survey it is not so. Similarly, the female students who appeared in this survey performed better than male students, especially in languages and equally well in Mathematics and Science. The general opinion that boys do better in Science and Maths is a myth.

I know this would have been a difficult reading exercise for most of you but I have tried to make this article as informative as possible with the data available on the NCERT website. I request all the teachers and the people interested in quality education for our kids to please go through the same for a better and wider understanding. I would also urge the government to take advantage of
this huge task undertaken by NCERT and CBSE for future policies and interventions on its part. I would like to thank all my colleagues who helped me in analysing this data and putting things in the right perspective. There are many more parameters which I avoided in this article for genuine reasons and I may refer to them in future articles. So, the takeaway may be that we still have to plan our education system discreetly and bring about the right pedagogy and methodology to achieve very important Learning Outcomes. Unless we make changes at the grassroots, no education policy can really uplift the system and create harmony with higher education. The standard of education and educational institutions need to be improved continuously for doing so and not for publicity because it is the duty of the state to provide quality education to all its citizens.

All data used in this article is the courtesy NCERT website.