PARAKH

The launch of the PARAKH Rashtriya Sarvekshan Dissemination Portal is a significant step toward enhancing education outcomes and addressing learning gaps across India.

PARAKH Rashtriya Sarvekshan Dissemination Portal

This portal serves as an open-access platform that provides data on student performance at the National and State levels. By offering data transparency, it will empower States/UTs to:

• Design targeted improvement plans tailored to local needs.

• Identify gaps in student learning outcomes.

• Bridge skill deficits by using data-driven insights for policy-making and educational reforms.

The portal is part of India's broader push for data-driven education reforms, aiming to provide real-time feedback and actionable insights to educational authorities.

What is PARAKH?

PARAKH stands for Performance Assessment, Review and Analysis of Knowledge for Holistic Development. It was established in 2023 within NCERT (National Council of Educational Research and Training) with the following key goals:

• To standardize school board assessments across the country, ensuring uniformity and comparability.

• To set norms, standards, and guidelines for assessments in line with the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020.

• To provide insights for improving student learning outcomes across different educational stages.

PARAKH's Core Mandate & Objectives:

1. Bringing School Boards to a Common Platform:
   PARAKH aims to bring the diverse school boards across States and Union Territories (UTs) to a common platform for more consistent and comparable assessments.

2. Capacity Development in Competency-Based Assessment:
   Moving away from rote learning, PARAKH focuses on developing assessments that evaluate competency-based learning. This ensures that students are not just memorizing content, but applying knowledge and skills in practical scenarios.

3. Large-Scale Achievement Survey:
   PARAKH will oversee large-scale surveys to assess the achievement levels of students across the country, identifying strengths and weaknesses in the system.

4. Equivalence of School Boards:
   To ensure a level playing field, PARAKH will work towards creating an equivalence between the various school boards, facilitating easier comparisons of student performance across different regions and boards.

5. Holistic Progress Cards:
   These cards will track the progress of students in terms of foundational, preparational, middle, and secondary stages. These will be used to assess both academic and non-academic development, ensuring a comprehensive evaluation.

Relevance in the Context of the NEP 2020

The establishment of PARAKH aligns with several goals of the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020, including:

• Competency-based education: Shifting focus from rote memorization to practical learning.

• Standardized assessments: Ensuring that assessments are aligned with global best practices.

• Promoting holistic development: Fostering not only academic skills but also critical thinking, creativity, and emotional intelligence.

The initiative will provide the necessary tools to track and assess how effectively the NEP 2020's reforms are being implemented, thus driving improvements in India's educational landscape.

Impact & Way Forward

The PARAKH Rashtriya Sarvekshan Dissemination Portal can potentially lead to:

1. Better Targeted Interventions: By analyzing performance data, educational planners can identify weak areas in both teaching and learning and deploy targeted interventions.

2. Equitable Education: By standardizing assessments, it can reduce disparities between students from different regions or school boards, promoting greater equity in education.

3. Continuous Improvement: The regular feedback loop enabled by this data will allow for real-time course corrections in educational strategies, ensuring that no child is left behind.

In conclusion, PARAKH is a strategic move towards creating a more accountable, data-driven, and competency-