National Testing Service-India

A mission to cater to the evaluation requirements of the country for academic auditing and quality maintenance to account for the huge amount of public funds spent on education For the first time in the country, action to establish benchmarks (in te the country, action to establish benchmarks (in terms of academic targets to be achieved at every level of education), has been initiated by the NTS-India, as a step towards creating a centralized mechanism for quality control. In order to take the whole country into confidence, 60 Regional Field Units are being created covering 30 regions across 18 States/UTs of the country. A compendium of Concept based Continuum of Graded Syllabi is being formulated in order to facilitate the maintenance of inter and intra level comparability, an ideal which has ever been thought of. A systematic effort has been initiated to distinguish and demarcate the concepts of Aptitude, Achievement, and Proficiency in the context of evaluation in education for the purposes of Admission, Certification, and Employment. NTS-India has penetrated into the domains of various disciplines and across the seven levels of general education in order to evolve a set of common reference points for maintaining quality, thereby establishing equality, as enshrined in the constitution of India. • operational jurisdictions of existing institutions of assessment, accreditation, evaluation, and examination such as NAAC of the UGC, NBA of the AICTE, NBE of the MCI, Evaluation Units of Universities, Examination Directorates, etc.1, are limited to only specific domains, purposes, and levels of education • but to meet the multiple demands of evaluation (that encompass the entire system of education) being received from various organisations of the country, no comprehensive mechanism is available • in order to fill up this gap, establishment of the National Testing Service or National Evaluation Organisation (as visualised by various Commissions of Education and envisaged under 5.40, 5.41 (Revised para) of NPE / POA 1986, NPE RC 1990 and CABE,1992)2 was proposed during 2004, by the Centre for Testing & Evaluation (CT&E)3, a 2 ½ decades old R&D Unit of the CIIL • accordingly, administrative approval of the competent authority (with the concurrence of Central Planning Commission) has been given to the CT&E to formulate & implement the NTS (or NEO) with effect from 1-07-2006, for the first time in the country. • to enlist the means & ends of education (subject matter, learner growth, and societal needs), in a hierarchical order with reference to all the disciplines, and language & lit., to begin with • to demarcate and distribute them under the seven levels of general education (primary, upper primary, secondary, higher secondary, graduate, post graduate & research) • to develop an independent, comprehensive, concept based continuum of graded syllabi applicable to all the above levels to systematise teaching, learning, & evaluation process • to evolve a framework for assessing aptitude, achievement, and proficiency as part of assessing the allround growth of an individual (both informatory & extrapolatory) • to prepare tools and scales for collecting, consolidating, and measuring the requisite data / evidences to undertake assessment & evaluation, in language discipline to start with, and for the higher secondary and degree levels at the first instance • to build up consensus on the materials and methodologies developed for the purpose of standardisation with reference to various regions of the country, and to evolve local, regional, and national norms • to establish standards / benchmarks for the (1) courses / programmes of study (in terms of content inputs & consequential effects), (2) institutions / departments involved in imparting them (in terms of their infrastructure & social concern), and (3) individuals status / position at various stages (pre, during, and post stages) of the educational continuum. ...view more