‘Gigantic’ exercise impossible without sincere efforts of all involved: Prof Pandita
By Farooq Shah
SRINAGAR: Tens of thousands of students across all the 20 districts of Jammu and Kashmir Friday participated in the National Achievement Survey (NAS) 2021 for the classes 3, 5, 8 and 10.
The survey, which was initiated by the Ministry of Education, Government of India, was conducted in all the 733 districts across India. The Ministry had hired the services of the Central Board of School Education (CBSE) to complete the exercise.
In Jammu and Kashmir, the CBSE collaborated with the State Council of Educational Research and Training (SCERT) to conduct the survey.
On Saturday, November 6, the Ministry had tweeted that it will be conducting the National Achievement Survey next week.
“National Achievement Survey (NAS) is a nation-wide, sample-based survey to assess learning achievement of students, undertaken by @EduMinOfIndia. 1.23 lakh schools in 733 districts across 36 States/UTs to participate in #NAS2021 on 12th Nov, 2021,” the Ministry’s tweet read.
National Achievement Survey (NAS) is a nation-wide, sample-based survey to assess learning achievement of students, undertaken by @EduMinOfIndia. 1.23 lakh schools in 733 districts across 36 States/UTs to participate in #NAS2021 on 12th Nov, 2021.#SamagraShiksha #AmritMahotsav pic.twitter.com/Kt2WUqGPs3
— Ministry of Education (@EduMinOfIndia) November 6, 2021
Lauding the role of all those involved in the survey, Director SCERT, Prof Veena Pandita, said the “gigantic” task could have not been possible without their sincere and tireless efforts.
“I’d like to express my heartfelt gratitude to Director School Education Jammu, Director School Education Kashmir, Project Director Samagra Shiksha, chief education officers and the SCERT team for their efforts to make this survey a success,” Prof Pandita said. “All this would have not been possible without the ever sincere and dedicated efforts of our coordinators at the district level, representatives from the CBSE, principals of the DIETs, field investigators and observers.”
She also thanked Principal Secretary, School Education, B K Singh, for extending his support to the exercise.
Prior to the start of the survey this morning, Singh had extended his best wishes to the participating students in the survey.
“Best wishes to all students appearing in NAS and hope officials engaged in NAS will have great success in free and fair NAS, setting as an example for others,” said his official Twitter handle.
Best wishes to all students appearing in NAS and hope officials engaged in NAS will have great success in free and fair NAS, setting as an example for others
Administrative Secretary
School Education Department.— School Education J&K (@SchoolEduJK) November 12, 2021
Describing the importance of NAS 2021, Prof Pandita said the survey will aid educational planners, policy makers and researchers in understanding the interdependence of assessment, pedagogical process and learning outcome in improving the quality of education.
“NAS 2021 will help us in the systematic understanding of the consequences that prolonged closure of schools has had on students’ learning,” Prof Pandita said. “Results will help us to make out the students’ performance in different learning outcomes vis-à-vis the contextual variables.”
SCERT had issued a string of instructions in this regard to conduct the survey in a methodical manner. The heads of District Institutes of Education and Trainings (DIETs) had been nominated as district nodal officers (DNOs) who, in turn, were authorized to appoint field investigators (FIs).
The field investigators conducted the sampling of sections and students in the assigned grade as per the procedure and completed other responsibilities in association with the observers.
“The number of FI’s and observers appointed for the survey had been made available on the DNO’s login on the NAS portal,” an SCERT official said.
He said the SCERT had entrusted all the school heads of sampled schools— government as well as private— to ensure the participation of students in the survey.
“All the staff of sampled schools were fully Covid-vaccinated with strict instructions to abide by all the necessary protocols,” he informed.
The last NAS was held on November 13, 2017 for assessing the competencies of children at the grade levels 3, 5, 8 and 10, however, the next round scheduled in 2020, in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, could not be held due to the school closures.
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