Context: Recently, the Education Ministry organized a workshop with the aim of unifying a network of 60 school examination Boards of various States and Union Territories under one umbrella. 

Need for unifying various school boards

• To establish a common platform and framework that ensures fairness, equity, and seamless transitions for students across different boards and regions.

• To align curriculum standards, grading systems, and evaluation methodologies to enhance credibility, recognition of certificates, and grades obtained across boards.

• Unification also aims to address the prevailing rote examination culture and promote holistic assessments that encompass various dimensions of a student’s abilities and potential.

• It emphasizes the importance of well-designed question papers, balanced assessments, and reducing the burden of high-stakes examinations while effectively measuring student progress.

• The main component of this plan is PARAKH.

• A workshop on PARAKH will act as a common platform for interaction of all stakeholders concerned in order to develop a holistic approach that ensures a fair assessment system which promotes equity in performance and equivalence in assessment of students.

About PARAKH (Performance Assessment, Review, and Analysis of Knowledge for Holistic Development)

• It is the National Assessment Centre, which has been set up as an organization under the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT).

• It will be tasked with holding periodic learning outcomes tests like the National Achievement Survey (NAS) and State Achievement Surveys.

• It will work on three major assessment areas: large-scale assessments, school-based assessments, and examination reforms.

Mandate

• To develop and validate standards of assessment for all school stages and curricular areas of school education, based on New Education Policy 2020.

• To provide technical guidelines and inputs for boards to design, develop, and implement state-wide systems for measuring student learning aligned with state and national curricular standards.

• To support examination boards regarding new assessment patterns (both for internal and external assessment), evaluation process, and practices, result in calculation and compilation, post-result practices, and the latest research.

• To manage India’s participation in international assessments like the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), or Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS).