NCERT announces India’s first national assessment regulator

The National Council for Education Research and Training (NCERT) has notified India’s first national assessment regulator, PARAKH, which will work on setting norms, standards and guidelines for student assessment and evaluation for all recognised school boards in the country.

PARAKH has been launched as part of the implementation of the National Education Policy 2020 that envisaged a standard-setting body to advise school boards regarding new assessment patterns and latest research, and promote collaborations between them.

Further, it will work on three major assessment areas: large-scale assessments, school-based assessment, and examination reforms, stated a senior NCERT official to a news portal. “To begin with, PARAKH will bring an equivalence in the recognised school boards in India in terms of the academic standards among learners. It will set up assessment guidelines for all the boards to help remove disparities in scores of students enrolled with different state boards,” the official informed.