Redesigning student assessment under National Education Policy 2020

Redesigning student assessment under National Education Policy 2020
on Apr 27, 2021

The National Education Policy (NEP) has laid a strong foundation for the transformational changes in the Education sector. The sector has been facing some of the major challenges including access to education, fee structure, and hiccups of online learning. Technically, the assessment also measures the efficiency of the teachers to explain the concepts, Maths, Science, vowels in English, etc. However, in India, the student assessment only measures how the student has fared and scored in a particular examination. However, the scores may or may not always provide a true picture and may not present a proper reflection about the student’s understanding of a particular subject. Here are some of the challenges faced in the current student assessment:

1. Measures only marks, not holistic development of the student

A grading system in the field of education is a system that helps in assessing the level of performance of the child which is based entirely upon the points only. Many times, students feel stressed about an examination or may have some other thoughts while appearing for an examination, thus affecting their scores and report card. But does that actually reflect a student’s progress? This leads to discrimination between the students and an atmosphere of healthy competition is not created for the students. However, this also showcases where the student’s interest lies. They get a clear view of their strengths and weakness.

2. No standardization

With different Boards and different grading systems, there is a need for standardization and universalization of the student assessment. As there is no standard protocol, the system clearly fails to identify the actual performance of the student. The system needs to be standardized in a way that can motivate the student to perform in better ways.

3. Not a descriptive evaluation

The present student assessment is more summative and score-based, which only evaluates the student’s memorization. This does not provide a clear picture of how the student has understood the concept that he is has studied.

Outlook for student assessment under NEP

1. Evaluating through technology

Measuring learning is very vital for a teacher. The major question that arises is, ‘How should the evaluation be done through the help of technology and not only based on scores?’ There is a strong need for an analytics-based assessment of the students, along with the human touch and intuition of the teachers. The teachers can track and assess the students' performance easily based on the assessments given, a clear view of a student’s understanding can be captured. Moreover, the teachers can keep a record of the students’ growth and discuss the learning curve of each child with the parents.

2. Descriptive measures for student growth

There is a strong need that a student is evaluated on the clarity of concepts, critical thinking, creativity, and cognitive behavior. The descriptive assessment will focus on the uniqueness and competency of each student. This will help the students in making the right career choices, as the descriptive measures include areas of strength, areas that need attention, and overall strengths and performance of the student.

3. Holistic progress card

The multi-dimensional progress card envisioned under NEP aims to provide a holistic report on student’s progress and learning. This system does not evaluate a child’s progress based on only scores. Thus helping the students in the overall development.

4. Involving parents in evaluation process

Considering the fact that parents also play an important role in a student's evaluation, the holistic progress card will actively involve parents in the evaluation process. Few ways in which teachers and parents can support schools and higher education institutes for student evaluation is when they follow a process of reflecting and evaluating. Reflection can be a process where a teacher can reflect and solve a student’s problem, and based on that process the evaluation can be done. Thus, there will always be advantages and disadvantages to the existing system, the main focus should only be that students should feel motivated enough to score better with an increasing level of skill and understanding about the concept. It should be able to depict the actual level of knowledge and performance of each student. The students should be encouraged to develop their skills in the right direction, and work smart at the same time. Source: indiatoday