Struggling to improve the performance of schools, the Gujarat government is planning to assess teachers’ involvement in classrooms. A panel set up to revise the Gunotsav process, the state government’s initiative to assess the performance of government schools and its students, to align with the national system and the National Education Policy-2020, has suggested incorporating teacher's assessment on the basis of the Continuous Professional Development (CPD). “Under the NEP-2020, a 50 hours CPD is mandatory for professional development annually in order to upgrade their skills. It is being planned to check if the teachers are a part of the CPD or not and the manner in which they are using this training in the classrooms. There needs to be a set criteria to identify good teachers,” chairman of the expert committee Jayendrasinh Jadav, educationist and registrar of the Gujarat Sahitya Academy, Gandhinagar, told The Indian Express. The state government last week had constituted two five-member committees – one of experts and educationists, and a sub-committee of stakeholders including government primary school teachers – to frame the revised guidelines for Gunotsav. The committees, which have met twice, are scheduled to meet this week again and are expected to submit their report in a month. The latest report by PARAKH (Performance Assessment, Review, and Analysis of Knowledge for Holistic Development) Rashtriya Sarvekshan 2024, India’s largest education survey released in July, had ranked Gujarat among the 10 least performing states in school education. Sharing details of the parameters on which the teachers will be assessed, Jadav said, “In order to implement over 250 indicators of SARTHAQ (Students’ and Teachers’ Holistic Advancement through Quality Education) developed by the Department of School Education and Literacy as an indicative and suggestive NEP implementation plan in Gujarat, our accreditation needs to be robust and transparent. It is necessary to check the teachers' involvement in day-to-day activities and whether they are adapting and evolving as per the NEP or not.” For this, good teachers and schools should be identified and motivated, and the government should take steps to increase these numbers, Jadav said. The SQAAF (School Quality Assessment and Assurance Framework) by PARAKH is also being studied to be implemented in the state by the Gujarat Council of Educational Research and Training (GCERT). The Indian Express has reported earlier how the Gunotsav guidelines are being framed to align the criteria with the national assessment surveys such as PARAKH in which Gujarat has fared badly – the state performed below national average across parameters and classes. Since the changes have to be implemented from the current academic year, the government has directed the committee to complete the work on a priority basis. For assessment of government schools and its students, Gunotsav was launched by the then Chief Minister Narendra Modi in 2009. This was redesigned as Gunotsav 2.0 by the education department in 2019-20. Since then, it has undergone revision twice, changing the evaluation criteria. In the recent change, during academic year 2023-24, the evaluation framework of accreditation was changed to include the schemes of the state government such as Chief Minister Gyan Setu and Chief Minister Gyan Sadhana Merit Scholarship Yojana. While the weightage of scholarship schemes such as Gyan Setu and Gyan Sadhana was increased from 17 per cent to 30 per cent, the share of other parameters, including teaching and learning, co-curricular activities, school management, etc, has been reduced to less than half for the purpose of accreditation.
