Orientation on Shaala Siddhi gets underway

KOHIMA, OCTOBER 20: A two-day State level orientation and workshop on Shaala Siddhi, an initiative of National Programme on School Standards and Evaluation (NPSSE), for State core group, district and EBRC officials got underway today at Capital Convention Centre, Kohima.
The programme was organised by National University of Educational Planning and Administration (NUEPA), New Delhi, in collaboration with Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) and Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan.
Stating that schools in the state are yet to come up to a satisfactory level as far as quality education is concerned, State Mission Director (SSA), Gregory Thejawelie, speaking at the inaugural session, said ‘Shaala Siddhi,’ which targets all schools across the country for evaluating school performances of both the teachers and learners may be the first step towards achieving quality education.He said this will cater to the needs of the schools scattered across the country and lead to improvement on the overall performance of the schools. He also informed that the State Core Group has been constituted comprising of fifteen members with SCERT Director, School Education Director and DEOs from all the districts of the state.
Resource person Professor & Head USSE, NUEPA, New Delhi, Prof Prananti Panda, in her keynote address, said the vision of NPSSE is envisaged as a positive step to enable all schools to continuously engage themselves in self-improvement.
She said the need for effective improvement of schools’ performance is increasingly felt in the Indian education system to provide quality education for all children. Thus, she said emphasis is being placed upon developing a comprehensive and holistic school evaluation system as central towards improvement of schools.
Prof. Panda informed that NUEPA under the aegis of Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) is leading the NPSSE which aims at evaluating each school and creating a culture of self-progression with accountability.
Stating that NPSSE visualises ‘school evaluation’ as the means and ‘school improvement’ as the goal, Prof. Panda said the programme envisions reaching all schools in the country by creating a sustainable and institutionalised system of school education. She, therefore, said it seeks to develop a common understanding across stakeholders- of the what, why and how of school evaluation.
While pointing out that each school is unique in its own context, size, conditions and resources, Prof. Panda said each school needs to critically analyse the current practices to identify its strengths and areas that need immediate action improvement.
Unlike the evaluation programmes that were taken up in the past, she said this programme will create a collaborative culture with the active participation of all stakeholders for making professional judgment and decisions, it will also enrich teachers and teaching-learning practices through reflection and collective sharing of experiences.
Some of the major objectives of NPSSE are to develop a technically sound conceptual framework, methodology, instrument and process of school evaluation to suit the diversity of Indian schools, create institutional mechanism and develop critical mass of human resource for adaptation and contextualisation of the school evaluation framework and practices across the state.
The programme, she said it also envisioned to facilitate the system to be responsive to school-specific needs, analyse school evaluation reports across systemic levels and initiate appropriate policy interventions.
To translate the objective of NPSSE in true spirit, Prof. Panda asserted that it is imperative to address the key operational component of the programme namely development of material, capacity building of a critical mass of human resource, institutional mechanism and research support for implementation of the programme.
To this effect, she informed that a National Technical Group (NTG) has been constituted comprising members from diverse institutions across the country to extend guidance and support. And as part of NPSSE initiatives to engage with the states, State Technical Groups (STGs) are being constituted to take forward the programme at the state level.