National Achievement Survey (NAS) 2021

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Context:

Recently, the Ministry of Education released the National Achievement Survey (NAS) 2021 report. The Triennial Survey was conducted in November 2021.

Relevance:

GS II- Education

Dimensions of the Article:

National Achievement Survey (NAS) is a nationally representative large-scale survey of students’ learning undertaken by the Ministry of Education, Government of India.
NAS gives a system level reflection on effectiveness of school education.
Findings help compare the performance across spectrum and across population in order to find the desirable direction for improvements.
The National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) has developed the Assessment Framework for gauging the competencies attained by the students vis-a-vis learning outcomes.
The Survey goes beyond the scorecard and includes the background variables to correlate student’s performance in different learning outcomes vis-a-vis contextual variables.
This national level survey would be conducted by the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE).
The NAS 2021 was conducted in 22 mediums of instruction that covered English, Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Kannada, Hindi, Malayalam, Marathi, Manipuri, Mizo, Punjabi, Odia, Telugu, Tamil, Bodo, Urdu, Garo, Konkani, Khasi, Bhutia, Nepali, and Lepcha.

To assess children’s growth and learning abilities as an indicator of the educational system’s efficiency in order to conduct suitable remedial activities at various levels.

NAS findings would help diagnose learning gaps of students and determine interventions required in education policies, teaching practices and learning.
Through its diagnostic report cards, NAS findings help in capacity building for teachers, officials involved in the delivery of education.
NAS 2021 would be a rich repository of evidences and data points furthering the scope of research and development.

National Average:

The national average percentage of students for class third was 59%, which declined by 10% to 49% in class fifth.
It further declined to 41.9% in class eight and then 37.8% in class 10.
The performance recorded a decline in almost all subjects.
For instance, the mathematics score nationally was 57% in class third, dropping by almost 10% to 44% in fifth, and to 36% in class eighth, and 32% in class 10th.
The language score nationally was 62% in class third, and dropped to 52% in class fifth, and to 53% in class eighth.
For science, the national score declined from 39% in class eighth to 35% in class 10.

Rural and Urban Areas:

The average performance of schools in rural areas remained “significantly below” those urban areas in same states and union territories (UTs).

Performance in Relation to Social Groups:

The performance of students from the schedule caste (SC)/ schedule tribe (ST)/ Other Backward Classes (OBC) categories remained lower than that of students from the general category.

Performance of Males and Females:

The average performance of girls remained better than the boys in almost all subjects across the classes, both nationally and at state level.

Although the majority of states scored below the national average, several states, such as Kerala, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, and Punjab, outperformed the national average.
When compared to the national average, Delhi’s performance in eighth and tenth grade was better.
Punjab gets the greatest overall score in all subjects for grades 3, 5, and 8.

-Source: Indian Express