A delegation of professionals from India’s National Council for Educational Research and Training (NCERT), led by Professor Avtar Singh, recently participated in a series of workshops over a two week period at ACER’s head office. The purpose of their visit was to receive training in the preparation and analysis of large-scale surveys to better monitor changes to educational outcomes under the Government’s reform program. 

Recognising that decisive action was required to achieve universal primary education for boys and girls by the year 2015 in line with the United Nations Millennium Development Goals, in 2001 the Government of India embarked on a nation-wide program called Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA).

SSA’s main goals are to enrol all children aged six to 14 years in school, to bridge all gender and social category gaps evident in schools, to achieve universal retention and to focus on elementary education of satisfactory quality with emphasis on education for life.

According to the World Bank, who supplies funding toward the program, SSA is the largest ongoing Education For All program in the world. SSA is responsible for reducing the number of out of school children from 25 million in 2003 to 8.1 million in 2009. The current enrolment rate is more than 98 per cent of children in the age cohort.

Professor Singh, the Head of India’s Department of Educational Measurement and Evaluation, said, “We established SSA firstly to enrol the children in the schools, secondly to retain them in the schools and subsequently provide them with education of reasonable quality.”

Having made significant progress on enrolment and retention, the focus is now heavily on the issue of quality. However, definitions of quality are of little use unless there are processes in place to measure whether or not it is being achieved.

Under SSA, NCERT has a mandate to conduct a National Achievement Survey of Grades 3, 5 and 8 every three years. Two assessment cycles have been completed since 2002. Each of these assessment cycles utilised Classical Test Theory.

“For the third assessment cycle we want to improve the quality of the survey,” Singh said. “We want to use Item Response Theory.”

Data collection for the Grade 5 cohort has already taken place. In need of further training in survey analysis and measurement theory, NCERT turned to ACER. Unlike Australia’s NAPLAN, India’s National Achievement Survey is a sample survey conducted on approximately one per cent of the student population.

Realising that ACER’s experience conducting international sample assessments such as PISA would be invaluable, Professor Singh travelled with six colleagues to ACER’s head office in Melbourne. There, highly-qualified ACER staff delivered a series of workshops on topics such as sampling, test development, field operations, analysis, reporting and report dissemination.

Professor Singh said his colleagues had benefited from their participation in the fortnight of workshops at ACER.

“It was a very useful exercise,” Singh said on the final day of workshops.

“We already have a plan of action for implementing the learning.”

Spurred by the success of his team’s visit, Professor Singh has reported he is open to exploring the possibilities of further collaborations with ACER as NCERT work towards fulfilling the aims of SSA; enrolment, retention, equity and quality.

Professor Singh identifies the supply of qualified and educated teachers as the biggest challenge India faces in providing all children with quality education.

Singh said, “We have children in the schools, now we need teachers in the schools.”

“Right to Education stipulates that there must be one teacher for every thirty students,” Singh said, referring to the 2009 Act of Parliament that outlines the State’s obligations in providing free and compulsory education to all children.

“To meet that requirement we need one million teachers.”

Professor Singh is confident that India can achieve the goals of SSA.

“It’s a developmental process,” Singh said. “It cannot be done overnight but we will do it.”

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