Secretary, Department of School Education & Literacy, Ministry of Education, chaired a review meeting on PARAKH with the stakeholders. Additional Secretaries, Department of School Education and Literacy, Ministry of Education, Shri Vipin Kumar and Shri Anandrao V. Patil; Head, PARAKH, NCERT, Prof. Indrani Bhaduri, and other Bureau heads were also present for the meeting. The Educational Testing Service (ETS), team led by Shri Amit Sevak, CEO, ETS, Princeton, US also participated in the meeting.
Highlighting the importance of assessment, Shri Sanjay Kumar, Secretary, DoSEL said that it is at the base of the entire process and if the assessment is run properly it will change people’s perception about education. India will set the benchmark for the rest of the world regarding the future of assessment, he said. He further said that teachers should be made aware of the significance of NAS so that they can conduct the exams with due diligence.
Detailed discussion took place about the ‘Academic Bank of Credit’ strengthening the ‘Competency-Based Framework’ through the use of ‘Holistic Progress Cards (HPCs)’. These HPCs are also visualized as teacher training tools and make the teacher aware of the grade-specific competencies and their related assessments.
The National Assessment Center, Performance Assessment, Review, and Analysis of Knowledge for Holistic Development (PARAKH) was established in March 2023 as an independent body under the Ministry of Education to fulfil the objectives suggested by the National Education Policy, 2020 (Para 4.41).