Panaji: Last month, the Goa State Council for Educational Research and Training (GSCERT) conducted the first external exam for students of Grades I and II, with common papers set for the classes. Now, the outcome will be analysed by GSCERT to see if changes implemented under National Education Policy (NEP) have thrown up the desired results.“Now that NEP has been implemented in all grades from Balvatika I to Grade VIII, we needed a baseline assessment of the foundational stage, which is from Balvatika I, when the child enters preschool, to Grade II. The basics of students need to be strengthened at this foundational stage; it is the basis of the entire NEP implementation. We need to make it strong. Once we analyse the results, we will know what strategy to draw up for these classes if a change in strategy is needed,” said GSCERT director Meghana Shetgaonkar.She said that training for Balvatika teachers will be designed based on the analysis results. As part of NEP implementation, the state is working to streamline teaching-learning in preschools, which are mostly privately operated at present.“Already, along with Goa Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan, programmes like NIPUN Bharat Mission to ensure proficiency in reading with understanding and numeracy are being implemented, along with Jaadui Pitara, which includes a play-based learning-teaching material collection developed by the NCERT. We need to see what additional support is required by teachers and students from us,” said Shetgaonkar.A common exam was introduced last year for Grades III to VIII, where GSCERT provides uniformly set question papers to all schools, where the corrections are carried out by schools’ teachers themselves. While a common exam was held accordingly in Oct for Grades III to VIII, for Grades I and II, a different assessment was carried out to check if the children have acquired age-appropriate competencies.The national assessment survey is carried out from time to time, but it is only in certain classes like Grades III, VI and VIII and only in selected sample schools. But the GSCERT conducted its assessment for around 40,000 students in Grades I and II in all govt and govt-aided schools in Goa.She said that the plan is to conduct the Goa foundational learning survey every year to check for competencies of young learners of every batch in the early grades.The foundational stage ends at Grade II and students enter the next level from Grade III under NEP.Just like the common exam, the assessment for Grades I and II will be held twice a year—once in Oct and again in March/April during an academic year.
