Nearly 36 lakh government school students to take competency test

Nearly 36 lakh students of the classes III, V and VIII of the government schools are set to take a competency test across the country including Karnataka on Monday.

The first-ever nationwide test to measure the class-wise and subject-wise learning outcome of the elementary students will be held by the NCERT at as many as 1.20 lakh schools in 703 districts. A provisional report on the test results will be released by the council by March, 2018 and a final report will come later.

"All the states have been requested to ensure that students of the sample schools remain present on Monday and take the test," Human Resource Development (HRD) Ministry sources told DH.

The format of the test, tiled as National Achievment Survey (NAS), has two different dimensions.

While the first part of the test is meant to assess the students competency in their subjects, the second is to elicit key information and views from the students, teachers and the schools (principals) about the functioning of their schools and teaching-learning process.

For the first part of the assessment, test booklets will be supplied to the students for marking correct answers to the questions in each of their subjects.

Students of Classes III and V will have to answer a total of 45 questions-15 each in Language, Mathematics and EVS (Environment and Social Sciences). While the type of the questions to be asked will be "formal and multiple choice," students of these two classes will have 120 minutes to complete their test.

Students of Class VIII will get 60 questions to answer in 120 minutes-15 each in the language, Mathematics, Science and Social Sciences papers. The questions will be "formal and multiple type."

"In the language paper, focus will be on reading comprehension only. The questions will cover 40% of the syllabus of the previous class and about 60% of the syllabus of the current class," official sources said.

Differently abled students will be given 30 minutes additional time to complete the test.

"Schools have been asked to provide scribe or recorder to help these children mark the response on the test booklets. They have also been asked to make suitable adaptations to the students' environment so that these children can take the test comfortably," sources said.

For the second part of the survey, students, teachers and school principals will be interviewed based on a set of questionnaires.

Some of the questions that the students may be asked include whether they like coming to their schools or not, which of their subject is most interesting to them, whether they use computer in school or read books at school library, whether the language spoken at their homes is same as the language used by teachers in school, whether they understand what the teacher says in the class or not.