National Achievement Survey (NAS) - 2021 Details

National Achievement Survey 2021

The Government of India has been implementing a sample based National  Achievement Survey(NAS) for classes III, V, VIII and X with a cycle period of three years.

NAS is competency based national-level large scale assessment,  conducted to provide information about the learning achievement of students.

Major objective is to have a system level reflection on effectiveness  of school education in the country and to provide information on system performance levels and  related or contributing factors.

The last NAS was held in 2017/2018 for assessing the competencies of  children at the grade levels III, V, VIII and X.

Next round of NAS in 2020 could not be held due to school closures.

National Achievement Survey (NAS) will now be conducted on 12th Nov  2021.

National Achievement Survey (NAS) is a nationally representative large-scale survey of students learning undertaken by the Ministry of Education, Government of India. NAS gives a system level reflection on effectiveness of school education. Findings help compare the performance across spectrum and across population in order to find the desirable direction for improvements.

National Achievement Survey-2021 is scheduled on 12th November 2021. The National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) has developed the Assessment Framework for gauging the competencies attained by the students vis-a-vis learning outcomes. The Survey goes beyond the scorecard and includes the background variables to correlate student's performance in different learning outcomes vis-a-vis contextual variables. This national level survey would be conducted by the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) as Assessment Administrator for Grade 3, 5, 8 and 10 students of State Govt. schools, Govt. Aided schools, Private Unaided recognized schools and Central Government schools. The Survey will be conducted in a monitored environment in the sampled schools. Sampling Design for NAS 2021 intends to support the predefined and agreed objectives of the national assessment, NAS 2021 intends to provide information of what India's students know and can do in key grades and subjects at national, state, district and school type. Selection of sampled schools is based on UDISE+2019-20 data. Therefore, the States, Districts used for drawing of the samples for NAS 2021 is exactly as per the UDISE+2019-20.

NAS findings would help diagnose learning gaps of students and determine interventions required in education policies, teaching practices and learning. Through its diagnostic report cards, NAS findings help in capacity building for teachers, officials involved in the delivery of education. NAS 2021 would be a rich repository of evidences and data points furthering the scope of research and development. With this in view, NAS-2021 Portal has been developed by NIC as a dynamic platform in consultation with the NCERT, CBSE, UNICEF, DDG (Stats) and NITI Aayog under the overall guidance of Ministry of Education, Government of India. This portal would be a sustainable educational management information system both for helping in smooth conduct of NAS-2021 as well as for future decision-making based on data analytics. The portal provides role-based functionality and dashboard for managing the resources (various functionaries involved in the conduct & administration of NAS), activity and event monitoring, capacity building, reporting & documentation, post NAS analytical report in the customized formats.

NAS in the Current Scenario

Provide a snapshot of what students know and can do at the end of  Classes 3, 5, 8 and 10 by measuring students attainment of LOs in the respective classes.

NAS will be useful for educational planners and policy makers including  researchers in understanding the interdependence of assessment, pedagogical process and learning outcome in improving the quality of education.

NAS 2021 will help in systematic understanding of the consequences that  prolonged closure of schools have had on students' learning in terms of their socio-emotional and cognitive development.

Results will help to accurately discover the students’ performance in  different learning outcomes vis-à-vis the contextual variables.

Capacity building of teachers, mid level officials, DIETs, SCERT and  other officials through the diagnostic report cards  

It will enable to track the future progress in context of National  Education Policy 2020.

Activity Schedule of NAS-2021

NIC portal to go live from 19th Aug 2021

SNOs nominated by the State 24th August

DNOs nominated by SNOs 3rd September

FIs nominated by DNOs 13th September

DLCs nominated by CBSE Done and data on NAS portal

Observers nominated by DLCs 10th September

NAS-2021 Test to be conducted on 12th November 2021

Salient Features of National Achievement Survey 2021

NAS 2021 will be conducted with a robust assessment framework at its  core, designed on the principles of assessing student learning outcomes.

All the mediums of instruction covered in NAS 2017 have been covered in NAS 2021.

NAS 2021 will be conducted for Grades 3, 5, 8 and 10 in key curricular areas of Language, Mathematics, EVS/Science and Social Sciences.

National sample for NAS covers government, govt. aided and unaided private schools including central government schools at all grades of all across the country

Sampling for NAS 2021

The sample framework estimates to test ~1.24 lakh schools unique schools for NAS 2021

Sample drawn from Govt. Govt. aided and unaided Private schools, (Rural & Urban representation in 733 districts across 37 States/UTs)

Grade - Total Schools - Total Enrollment

Grade 3  - 29,603 - 6,55,128

Grade 5 - 28,656 - 6,46,975

Grade 8 - 46,062 - 12,04,777

Grade 10  - 48,564 - 13,80,879

NAS-2021 Test Pattern for Grade 3 and 5

Language, Mathematics, EVS -  47 items (90 minutes)

NAS-2021 Test Pattern for Grade 8 and 10

Language ,Mathematics, Science & Social Science and English - 70 items (120 minutes)