Ranking of Schools in India will be undertaken by the ministry of Human Resource Development following a suggestion from a panel of bureaucrats. The ministry will initially aim to cover around 10% schools for the first year and then gradually increase the coverage span to about 50% by 2019. This was quite predictable given the MHRD ranking published earlier this year for the higher educational institutions of the country. According to official sources, the ranking scheme is to be planned on the ‘Gunotsav Scheme’, started during the reign of our current Prime Minister, Narendra Modi while he was the Chief minister of Gujarat where in each child is assessed on learning outcomes and tracked over subsequent classes.
In fact, HRD minister Smriti Irani has already said that her ministry would extend this child-tracking system on learning outcomes across the country which will be a mammoth project given the large network of schools. Under this scheme, assessment is basically done at two levels every year. Students from classes III-VIII are assessed through tests conducted by schools on their conceptual understanding and application. Each student will be a given a unique ID number and their performance tracked over the years. The school also makes an assessment about its infrastructure and resources.
The ranking or evaluation is done by senior officials on a number of quality parameters. The process includes the official spending a full day at the school, talking to students, parents, reviewing basic facilities and resources and so on. All of this is weighed during ranking the school. PM Narendra Modi has already directed the HRD Ministry to prepare a minimum standard of expected learning for each class, which would be displayed on the school wall.
However, some educationists such as Ashok Agarwal believe that it is unfair to rate schools on quality before addressing basic problems faced by schools. Some of them were cited by Agarwal:
- Schools have to often do with 30% teacher vacancies
- 25% teachers remain absent from schools on any given day.
With the absence of trained professional teachers the initiative by the government for a super structure is good for nothing, says the educationist.
Source: http://goo.gl/JTUk2F
