PARAKH : National Assessment Regulator

PARAKH : National Assessment Regulator

The National Council for Education Research and Training (NCERT) has notified India’s first national assessment regulator, PARAKH (Performance Assessment, Review, and Analysis of Knowledge for Holistic Development), which aims to set up assessment guidelines for all boards.

• PARAKH has been launched as part of the implementation of the National Education Policy (NEP)-2020 that envisaged a standard-setting body to advise school boards regarding new assessment patterns and latest research, and promote collaborations between them.
• It will act as a constituent unit of the NCERT.
• It will also be tasked with holding periodic learning outcome tests like the National Achievement Survey (NAS) and State Achievement Surveys.
• It will work on three major assessment areas: large-scale assessments, school-based assessment, and examination reforms.
• Objective:
  • Setting norms, standards and guidelines for student assessment and evaluation for all recognized school boards of India.
    It will encourage and help school boards to shift their assessment patterns towards meeting the skill requirements of the 21st century.
  • It will bring uniformity across the state and central boards which currently follow different standards of evaluation, leading to wide disparities in scores.
  • The benchmark assessment framework will seek to put an end to the emphasis on rote learning, as envisaged by the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020.