NTS to carry out pilot study soon

The Centre for Testing and Evaluation, the Headquarters of the NTS at Central Institute of Indian Languages(CIIL) here is all set to embark on major exercise among 5 lakh students across the Country to set or determine the standards for admissions, certification and recruitment through the three important benchmarks called the aptitude, the achievement and proficiency.  

The NTS will carry out a national sample survey or a pilot study to formulate and come out with the final report testing standards in India. The pilot programme will be implemented for Hindi, Tamil and Urdu languages. “We have devised 69 questionnaires for different categories. The study will be done in the month of December and January in more than 20 States through the Regional Field Units(RFUs),” Pon Subbaiah, Head of NTS and Director of Centre for Testing and Evaluation told Deccan Herald.

The survey will be done on five per cent sample of the total students studying in higher secondary and graduation levels across 15 states which come under the NTS scheme for Hindi, Tamil and Urdu. About 12 states are selected for Hindi, two states for Tamil and the State of Karnataka for Urdu. Though, the pilot study was to happen in August and September, it was delayed due technical reasons. The NTS has to mobilise more than 20000 teachers to hold the test for the students, Subbaiah said.

The standards are fixed in three ways. Firstly, with the aptitude to qualify for a particular course followed by achievement with reference to certification and thirdly proficiency benchmark for the employment or recruitment. “Once the norm is set the comparison becomes easy through common reference point in admission for various courses, certification and recruitment. The data can also be easily transformed and applied to other languages,” he said.  According to Subbaiah, it required hardly a month for the NTS to determine the standards once the pilot study exercise was over and the answer papers reached the headquarters.

The NTS chalked out Rs 11 crore plan to bring Kannada, Bengali and Punjabi languages under the NTS programme in 209-10, the Centre is yet to give approval for it, Subbaiah said.