New Delhi: The National Achievement Survey (NAS) is the largest ever national assessment survey in the country and is amongst the largest in the world, was conducted throughout the country today. Union HRD Minister Shri Prakash Javadekar said that the NAS is a transparent and credible exercise done under third party verification. It was conducted for the Classes 3, 5 and 8 in government and government aided schools. The survey tools used multiple test booklets with 45 questions in Classes III and V related to language, mathematics and 60 questions in Class VIII in Mathematics, Language, Sciences and Social Sciences. The competency based test questions developed reflected the Learning Outcomes developed by the NCERT which were recently incorporated in the Right to Education Act (RTE) by the Government of India. Along with the test items, questionnaires pertaining to students, teachers and schools were also used.
The learning levels of more than 25 lakhs students from 1,10,000 across 700 districts in all 36 States/UTs were assessed. More than 1.75 lakhs trained Field Investigators from outside the government education system were engaged to conduct the learning assessment in the country. To ensure the fairness of the survey, a monitoring team was constituted which consisted of observers from inter-ministerial departments drawn from the State Governments, National and State Observers from Education Departments and multi-lateral organizations. This monitoring team observed the implementation of the survey in all the districts, on the Day of Assessment.
The district wise learning report cards will be prepared based on a software especially designed for this. Subsequently, analytical reports will be prepared. The analysis will reflect the disaggregated and detailed learning levels. The whole process will begin immediately and will be completed within 3-5 months. The inferences will be used to design Classroom interventions percolated to all the schools in the districts for implementation. The findings of the survey, will also help in understanding the efficiency of the education system. NAS results will help guide education policy, planning and implementation at national, state, district and classroom levels for improving learning levels of children and bringing about qualitative improvements.
