New Delhi: PARAKH, the national assessment regulator, will soon come up with guidelines for setting question papers, and is also preparing a sample question bank in order to bring equivalence among various school education boards in India, Indrani Bhaduri, its CEO and head, said in conversation with ThePrint Friday.
PARAKH (Performance Assessment, Review and Analysis of Knowledge for Holistic Development), an independent body under the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT), was notified in 2023 “to fulfil the basic objectives of setting norms, standards and guidelines and implement [sic] activities related to student assessment” as prescribed by the National Education Policy (NEP), 2020.
It submitted a report to the Union education ministry in July recommending various measures to align the evaluation carried out by all 69 school education boards in India.
Highlighting the need for a structured approach to paper setting to bring equivalence among education boards, Bhaduri said, “Currently, if I’m a teacher with a certain level of experience, I might be tasked with creating question papers. However, setting a paper requires a scientific methodology. It’s essential for me, as a paper setter, to grasp the principles of question paper design, including the blueprint, and understand how to derive various question papers from that blueprint.”
“To address this, we are collaborating with state board officials to conduct capacity-building training programs. Additionally, we are developing a guideline document to assist with effective paper setting,” she said.
Bhaduri said that PARAKH will be collaborating with state boards to train their master trainers. “It’s not feasible for us to train a large number of paper setters for each state board; instead, we can effectively train about five to 10 master paper setters. These master setters will then be responsible for training additional paper setters within their boards. We are planning to implement a cascade model to develop these trainers, ensuring that each board has its own pool of skilled paper setters,” she said.
She said that the target is to establish clear protocols for paper setting that must be consistently followed by all paper setters. “These standard protocols are essential for ensuring that whether I set a paper or you set one from another board, we are aligned. If both of us adhere to the same standards, it will naturally lead to greater equivalence in our assessments. However, if we each apply different, random approaches, it could lead to confusion and inconsistency,” Bhaduri said.
Besides, the assessment regulator is also planning a sample question bank focused on competency-based assessment, which will guide the state boards in creating their own question banks.
“The equivalence report emphasises that each board should establish an Integrated Test Management System. This system starts with creating a comprehensive question bank. A key shift outlined in the NEP 2020 is moving from rote memorisation to competency-based assessment. If all boards adopt this approach, we can achieve greater equivalence in assessments. We are assisting the boards in developing their question banks and have already advised them on this need,” Bhaduri said.
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Why is equivalence important?
The NEP, while recommending the setting up of PARAKH, said that it was to “become an instrument for the sharing of best practices among school boards, and for ensuring equivalence of academic standards among learners across all school boards”.
Right now, there are 69 education boards in India, including state boards, the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE), the Council for the Indian School Certificate Examinations (CISCE), the National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS) and others, and each of them follows different assessment standards and protocols.
“One of the biggest challenges in ensuring comparability in assessment procedures arises when one board sets a paper and another board sets a different one. If these two papers are not equivalent, the scores from one board cannot be compared to those from the other. And due to all this, some boards are considered better than others,” Bhaduri said.
Bhaduri said that PARAKH conducted a research study involving all 69 recognised boards and discovered significant variability in their operations, including how they set exam papers and the types of questions they use.
“When PARAKH talks about equivalence, we are focused on establishing comparability among the boards, not on cloning them. Our goal is to ensure that a student studying in one board can transition to another without restrictions, and that results from different boards can be compared fairly,” she said.
To achieve this, PARAKH in the report submitted to the education ministry recommended having defined equivalence based on five key parameters: administration, curriculum, assessment, infrastructure, and inclusiveness.
“We’ve provided guidelines for establishing equivalence in these areas. Following the release of our report, we have been closely collaborating with the boards and organising regional workshops attended by chairpersons, secretaries, and other officials. There is a strong consensus among them that the changes suggested in the NEP 2020 need to be implemented,” she said.
PARAKH has also recommended to factor in students’ performance across classes 9 to 12 in their class 12 results to implement the NEP recommendation of “continuous assessments”. “We should not assess children based on one particular exam. It has to be a continuous assessment,” Bhaduri said.
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Holistic Progress Card
Last year, PARAKH had developed the Holistic Progress Card (HPC), which takes into account feedback from peers, parents, and self-assessment of students to track their progress in different domains throughout the year in line with the NEP.
It has developed the progress card for the foundational stage of classes 1 and 2, the preparatory stage of classes 3 to 5, the middle stage of classes 6 to 8, and the secondary stage of classes 9 to 12. Last year, the CBSE and the NCERT conducted a pilot of the HPC in select schools across the country.
Bhaduri said that states are at various stages of implementation of the HPC. “To ensure its success, we started translating the card into regional languages, as this is crucial for its acceptance. Many states are currently working on this translation. We’ve advised that they begin with foundational and preparatory levels this year, while some states have already conducted district-level training for their participants. Others are still navigating the translation process. Our goal is to aim for implementation at the foundational and preparatory levels this year, with secondary levels planned for next year,” she said.
The CBSE has already announced that it will implement the HPC at the foundational stage this year.
“We are also planning to link the HPC of the child with their APAAR IDs next year,” she added.
Automated Permanent Academic Account Registry (APAAR) IDs were launched last year in higher education institutes as a “one nation, one student ID” initiative envisioned in the NEP.
Teacher assessment; NAS 2024
Speaking about the upcoming projects under PARAKH, Bhaduri said, “One important initiative that PARAKH is currently developing is a course in psychometrics, which is still not available as a regular college program. We are working on building this course and have already prepared the modules. Additionally, we are focusing on teacher assessment, which is also in the pipeline and represents a significant undertaking,” she said.
PARAKH is also preparing for the National Assessment Survey (NAS) 2024, which is scheduled for 4 December. NAS was last held in 2021.
“We are collaborating with the states, and CBSE will be administering this assessment. NAS 2024 will provide a baseline measurement of competencies for students at key stages: at the end of foundational education in grade three, preparatory education in grade six, and middle education in grade nine. We aim to identify the baseline competencies at these different stages. This understanding will help us develop targeted teacher training programs. Additionally, we can assess what policy changes are necessary at the state level and how textbooks may need to be revised to support these competencies,” Bhaduri said.