Context

Department of School Education and Literacy has released the National Achievement Survey (NAS) 2021 report.

About

About National Achievement Survey (NAS):

• 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.
• The National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) have developed the Assessment Framework for gauging the competencies attained by the students vis-a-vis learning outcomes.
• This national level survey is conducted by the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE).

About National Achievement Survey (NAS) 2021 report:

• The report assesses the health of school education system in the country by conducting comprehensive evaluation survey of children’s learning competencies at grades third, fifth, eight and 10 with a cycle period of three years.
• It reflects the overall assessment of school education system.
• The last NAS was held in 2017.
• The objective of NAS 2021 is to evaluate children's progress and learning competencies as an indicator of the efficiency of the education system, so as to take appropriate steps for remedial actions at different levels.  
• It will help to unravel the gaps in learning and will support state/UT governments in developing long term, mid-term and short-term interventions to improve learning levels and orient on differential planning based on NAS 2021 data.
• About 34 lakh students of 1.18 lakh schools in 720 districts from both rural and urban areas have participated in NAS 2021. 
• NAS 2021 covered both central and state government schools, government-aided schools and private schools across the country.
• The survey was conducted in 22 languages.
• The report is based on the performance in all subjects through disaggregation by gender (female, male), Area (Rural and Urban), Management of schools (Government, Government aided and Private unaided) and Social Groups (Schedule Caste (SC), Schedule Tribe (ST), Other Backward Communities (OBC) and General.