It was a confusing day for most of the Class 3 students, who returned to classes to write assessment exams, almost two years after schools had to shut down physical classes due to the pandemic. On Friday, the National Assessment Survey (NAS) took place across the country, in which more than 87 schools in Pune city participated, where students of classes 3, 5, 8 and 10 are assessed for learning outcomes and disadvantages. Given. Due to the pandemic-induced online schooling.
Eight-year-olds, who were in class one when they last went to school, were excited to be back in school, albeit for a day, but the ‘tough’ questions stymied them. Many people found the questions difficult to read and some even struggled to write their name on the assessment sheet.
“During the pandemic we had online classes, but even 50 per cent of the class will not attend. Parents will tell us that they have no internet, not a single phone that an older child is using and that children are reluctant. Today we are seeing the result. Many children are unable to read the questions, we are reading them out. After we read they can answer the questions, maybe they have got used to this because so far there was only oral exam. Also, the writing practice is gone, so many children are struggling to write,” said Asiya Mushrif, principal in-charge, New English School, Mohammadwadi.
Since the tests were OMR sheet based, the invigilators appointed by the state education department were asked to fill the sheets instead of the students.
Vikas Gard, Deputy Director, Maharashtra State Council of Education, Research and Training confirmed, “If there is any mistake the sheet can be rejected, so during the training we asked the invigilators to fill the sheet based on the responses of the students. Was.”
For higher classes, principals did not report such hiccups.
Sanjeev Yadav, Principal of Shri Haribhau Balwantrao Girme Vidyalaya said that two batches of class 8 and 10 wrote the tests.
“We had prepared the students in advance by conducting a mock drill which made them know exactly what to do, so we did not face any trouble. Around 218 out of 550 students of class 8 and 10 appeared. The numbers would have been higher but many students had gone to the villages during the Diwali holidays and since the transport strike is going on, they could not come back. The students who wrote the test said that they did well except for a few difficult questions,” he said.
Shilpkala Randhe, Project Officer, Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan said that the attendance figures are still being compiled. “Around 65 schools have sent their data from Pune, rest are filling the online form as of now. So far, it looks like attendance was about 80 percent of the number we expected. ,
While the final attendance figures were being compiled on Friday night as well, the initial data from 12 districts shared by MSCERT showed that attendance was not bad. Overall, attendance was above 90 percent in most districts with few exceptions for young students.
In the Class 3 section, Gondia district saw a student turnout of 76 per cent of the expected number, while Beed district saw a turnout of over 95 per cent. Beed recorded only 85 per cent attendance of students in class 5, and Akola recorded 89 per cent attendance in class 8.
Ahmednagar district saw the highest turnout in higher classes, as 100 per cent of class 5 students took the exam, while 98.87 per cent of class 8 took the exam. The total turnout from the district was 98.81 percent of the expected turnout.
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