No child in pre-school should be made to give any written or oral exam, the National Council of Educational Research (NCERT) said. It termed any written or oral exam as a harmful and undesirable practice resulting from misguided parental aspiration.
NCERT which is the HRD Ministry’s curriculum developing body said that the purpose of evaluation at the pre-school level is not to label child as pass or fail.
Advertisement
“Currently we have in the country pre-school programmes ranging from those that put children to a dull and monotonous routine to those where children are exposed to structured formal reading, often in English, made to do tests and homework, and denied their right to play. These are undesirable further and harmful practice that results from misguided parental aspiration,” a senior NCERT official said.
As a part of its ‘guidelines for pre-school education’, the Council has listed do’s and dont’s on how assessment should be carried out and reported in pre-schools.
As per the guidelines, each child’s progress needs to be assessed on a continuous basis using different tools and techniques such as anecdotal records, checklists, portfolios and interactions with other children. The teacher should make brief written notes based on observations of children, how and where children spend time, their social relationships, use of language, modes of interaction, information about health and nutrition habits.
“Each child’s folder should be available for parents and children to view and should remain with the preschool until such time as a child’s transition to another preschool programme or in the primary school. All parents should receive a written and verbal progress summary report of their child at least twice a year,” the guidelines read.
The guidelines also defines parameters for infrastructure, qualification and salary for preschool staff, admission process and records and registers to be maintained, monitoring and supervision mechanism and importance of coordination and convergence with community and parents.
