The National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) has asked the states and Union territories to implement the Holistic Progress Card (HPC) under the National Education Policy 2020 for a “multidimensional progress monitoring” of students up to class 8 this year, officials familiar with the matter said.
PARAKH (Performance Assessment, Review and Analysis of Knowledge for Holistic Development), a national assessment centre under the NCERT, has developed the progress card for the foundational stage of classes 1 and 2), the preparatory stage of classes 3 to 5, and middle stage of classes 6 to 8.
HPC takes into account feedback from peers, parents, and self-assessment of students to track their progress in different domains throughout the year. The NCERT and the Central Board of Secondary Education conducted a pilot of HPC in select schools last year.
The progress card is a comprehensive assessment of children throughout the year, said Indrani Bhaduri, CEO of PARAKH. “It will document his or her achievements in different domains, including physical, socio-emotional, literacy, studies, and others, in a year. We are advocating it for all schools,” she said. “Many private schools have approached PARAKH for training their teachers.”
The card will also form an important link between the home and school and will be accompanied by parent-teacher meetings to actively involve parents in their children’s holistic education and development.
{{/usCountry}}The card will also form an important link between the home and school and will be accompanied by parent-teacher meetings to actively involve parents in their children’s holistic education and development.
{{/usCountry}}PARAKH has so far trained faculty from the state councils of educational research and training, teachers from all the district institutes of education and training, and 100 teachers from each state as master trainers. “There are around one crore [10 million] teachers and to reach all these teachers will take time,” Bhaduri said. “Now, states have to train their teachers with the help of these master trainers.”
PARAKH is working on digitising the progress cards, she said, adding that the council is presently working on the framework for classes 9 to 12 as well. “Many states have started translating HPC into their regional languages. The Hindi translation has been done by Haryana, Chandigarh, and Chhattisgarh. Maharashtra is also doing it in Marathi,” Bhaduri said.
HPC is progressive but will take time to implement, a Haryana school education department official said. “It will need a lot of teachers’ training and awareness among parents. We will have to implement HPC in a staggered manner,” said the official.