A New Regulation by the Government: Uniformity in Board Exam Scores

Vinod Kakumanu
Sept. 6, 2022, 9:54 a.m.

With the aim of bringing about ‘uniformity’ across the state and central boards, central authorities are planning for a ‘benchmark framework’ to assess secondary and higher secondary students. At present the boards follow different set up of evaluations, leading to disparity in results.

In a meeting conducted by the NCERT (National Council of Educational Research and Training) with the representatives of the State boards and SCERTs (State Councils of Educational Research and Training), the issue was discussed regarding the plan and its implementation. The plan includes setting up of an assessment regulator PARAKH (Performance Assessment, Review and Analysis of Knowledge for Holistic Development).

PARAKH will act as a constituent unit of NCERT and like the National Achievement Survey (NAS) and State Achievement Survey (SAS), it can study the end-result exams. As envisaged by the NEP (National Education Policy), the benchmark evaluation framework will work towards putting an end to rote-learning. The objective of PARAKH is to develop and implement “technical standards for the design, conduct, analysis and reporting” of tests at all levels of school education.

The EOI (Expression of Interest) team stated that leading assessment experts with a deep understanding of the national and international education systems will constitute the PARAKH team. Eventually, it will become the national single-window source for all information and expertise related to assessment.