PARAKH Meet Aimed At Unifying 60 School Boards
Context:
To bring together a network of 60 school examination boards from various States and Union Territories under one roof, the Education Ministry hosted a workshop in New Delhi on Monday.
PARAKH
- A standard-setting organisation that is a part of the NCERT (National Council of Educational Research and Training), PARAKH was established as part of the implementation of the National Education Policy (NEP)-2020.
- Its primary goal is to advise school boards on innovative assessment practices and the most recent educational research. Additionally, it tries to encourage cooperation between various school boards.
- Periodic learning outcome assessments like the National Achievement Survey (NAS) and State Achievement Surveys are carried out by PARAKH.
- Large-scale assessments, school-based assessments, and examination reforms are the three main assessment-related topics.
Key Objectives of PARAKH
- Uniform Norms & Guidelines: Norms, standards, and guidelines are established uniformly by PARAKH for student evaluation and assessment across all recognised school boards in India. This promotes uniformity and fairness in the evaluation procedure.
- Enhanced Assessment Pattern: The organisation advocates and supports school boards in changing their assessment patterns to reflect the 21st-century skill requirements. This encourages a more thorough and all-encompassing assessment of pupils’ skills.
- Reduced Evaluation Disparity: PARAKH seeks to standardise the state and central boards’ existing widely varying evaluation practices. This promotes equal opportunity for all students and lessens score differences.
- Benchmark Assessment: The benchmark assessment framework developed by PARAKH aims to move away from memorization and place an emphasis on a deeper and more thorough comprehension of things. This is in line with the NEP 2020’s vision, which aims to advance a comprehensive and skill-based educational system.
Points to Ponder:
- To bring together a network of 60 school examination boards from various Indian states and union territories, the Education Ministry organised a workshop in New Delhi.
- Studying school evaluations, exam procedures, and the comparability of boards across the nation were the main topics of the session.
- The National Assessment Centre, or PARAKH, which was founded as an organisation under the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT), is a significant part of this strategy.
- The goal of PARAKH is to unify school boards from various states and union territories, fostering uniformity and standardisation in evaluation procedures.
- The PARAKH workshop provided a forum for interaction and the development of a comprehensive strategy for ensuring an equitable assessment system that encourages equity in student performance and equivalence in assessments.
- Sanjay Kumar, the Secretary for School Education, emphasised the importance of board equivalency to create a consistent framework that enables smooth transitions for pupils changing boards or areas.
- The workshop’s talks focused on reevaluating the prevalent rote examination culture, emphasising the need to move towards a more all-encompassing and holistic approach to education.
