JOIN USThe Karnataka School Quality Assessment and Accreditation Council (KSQAAC) is set to make a number of changes in the format of the quality and learning assessment of schools in the State 2014-15 onwards.
Henceforth, it has been proposed to conduct the assessment for 4,000 schools in three stages, with each stage having five phases. Assessment will be conducted for classes 3 to 9. To take an example, in stage one, there will be five phases where students of classes 3, 4 and 5 in 1300 schools will be assessed.
Similarly in stage two, students of classes 7 and 8 and in the third stage, the students of standards 6 and 9 will be assessed. Each stage will also have a specific arrangement to assess learning in various subjects.
Just like last year, none of the schools in the State surveyed by KSQAAC for the academic year 2013-14, were able to secure an ‘A plus’ grade.
This despite the fact that the survey included private unaided as well as government-aided schools. Out of the 1,784 surveyed schools - 1,021 government, 725 government aided and 38 private unaided - only 30 schools got an A grade, 93 schools got B plus and 290 got grade B. Most of the surveyed schools, 589, got grade C and another 508 received C plus. The remaining 273 schools scored D grade.
The grading was based on five parameters - physical environment, leadership, community participation, innovative activities. The assessment was done for classes 5, 7 and 9.
Last year, only 1,020 government Kannada medium schools were surveyed, out of which only five schools got grade A, 32 got grade B plus and 122 got B grade. In addition to the three classes, students of class 3 were assessed last year.
The districts that scored the highest number of A grades in this year’s assessment were Chikodi (19), Koppal (3) and Mandya (2). The districts with the least scores of grade D were Bidar (30) and Bangalore North (21).
Learning achievements
As far as the subject-wise learning achievement is concerned, students of classes 5 and 7 had the least learning achievement in Social Science with 41.09 per cent and 38. 24 per cent respectively. For class 9 students, their learning achievement was the lowest in second language subjects with 37.7 per cent. Students performed very well in first language subjects across the three classes with a learning achievement between 53 to 55 per cent.
Category-wise, ST students showed the lowest learning achievements for all classes, with around 38 per cent for classes 5 and 9 and 40.25 per cent for class 7. Children from the general and minority category had the highest learning achievements.
The learning achievement among girls was higher than boys with 45 per cent to 46 per cent for the former and 41 to 42 per cent for the latter. Among differently abled students, the learning achievement was very low, hovering between 25 per cent to 30 per cent.
The assessment was conducted in five phases with each phase assessing a particular number of government, unaided and aided schools. Of the assessed schools, 236 were lower primary schools, 696 higher primary schools and 852 were secondary schools.