The decision of the National Council for Educational Research and Training to conduct what it calls a “census” on the education system comes amidst the raging controversy over whether the system of examinations should be retained in schools, at any rate till Class VIII.

There can be no quarrel with the move to conduct a “learning competency test” for 200 million children of government and state-aided schools in the Class I-VIII category, with the expressed objective to plug loopholes in the system.

However rational the NCERT’s initiative, it is somewhat at odds with the move to put in place a system of “automatic promotions” up to Class VIII. The praxis of governments, breathless as it is, contradicts that of the NCERT.

While the internal assessment procedure has been or is set to be abjured in most states, the decision of the NCERT ~ as an overarching entity ~ to assess the students’ assimilation of the syllabus in the “first half” of the academic year and “what they have studied in the previous year” ought ideally to come within the purview of any school’s end-of-the-term examinations.

The survey will also assess whether or not the teachers have been able to deliver the praxis of “no exams” till Class VIII affords spurious protection to students and facilitates the evasion of responsibility by teachers.

In point of fact, the NCERT is set to address the evasion of accountability by the schools… and almost invariably at the bidding of governments at the Centre and in the states. As often as not, the educational authorities contend with a turmoil of ideas. The contrived argument ~ to lessen the burden of exams at a tender age ~ holds no water. In many if not most schools, the first examination is held in Class IX.

The scrapping of exams till Class VIII can harm rather than help the student. Which explains the NCERT’s determination to plug the lacuna and significant is the parameter that it has set for the survey ~ the first eight years or the foundational stage of schooling. The previous evaluation had covered around 2.5 lakh students in Classes III, V, VIII, and X (primary, the middle and senior levels).

The scope of the NCERT survey will be focused on what it calls the “minimum expected learning outcome levels”. It will expose the deficiencies in learning as well as teaching. In the net, NCERT will be performing an elementary function that ought to have been discharged at the school level.

Teaching is but one side of the school education coin. Evaluation is no less critical, but which sadly has been accorded the short shrift through automatic promotions for the better part of schooling. While it has been an easy ride for the children, the teachers have skirted a vital responsibility.