TURA, Nov 12: The National Achievement Survey (NAS) 2021, which was held across the country on Friday, encountered a glitch in Meghalaya, when schoolchildren at Sherwood School in Tura, who were expecting the questionnaires in English, received the same in Hindi.
The survey was conducted in different mediums of instruction as available in the sampled schools. The survey, which assesses the competencies developed by the students, is conducted every three years. The survey was last conducted in 2017 and was scheduled to take place in 2020. However, due to the COVID-19 situation, it was postponed until this year.
The survey was conducted across India in 22 mediums of instruction covering Assamese, Bengali, English, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Manipuri, Marathi, Mizo, Odiya, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu, Urdu, Bodo, Garo, Khasi, Konkani, Nepali, Bhutia, and Lepcha.
In Meghalaya, the glitch was first encountered by the Class X students of Sherwood School when they received the questionnaires in Hindi language.
“For the Class X students who took part in the survey, the question paper was in Hindi. Why were Hindi question papers sent to Meghalaya when the medium of learning in our state is English?” questioned Sherwood Principal, Tyrone D’Brass, while speaking to The Shillong Times.
He pointed out that Meghalaya has always prepared its students for all exams in the English language, except where the subject of MIL is concerned. “The fault lies with the central agency, in this case the Government of India, that prepared the question papers for Meghalaya,” the principal rued.
The District Institute for Education and Training (DIET), which that was tasked with distributing the sealed question paper packets sent from Delhi, acknowledged the setback.
Its head, YR Marak, told this scribe that there was a mix-up with the question papers due to which several students ended up getting the questionnaires in Hindi.
“Booklets containing the question papers were in two booklets for Class X and in one booklet that had five subjects some of it were in Hindi,” she said.
Informing that students appearing for the examination had an option in the question paper to give remarks, she said, “They can leave the question in Hindi blank and there is a comment section in the question sheet where they can mention the reason for not attempting, in this case the language did not match.”
The students, who partook in the survey, were left disappointed. “We wanted to give our best and also show the loopholes which arose due to closure of schools caused by the pandemic. We feel let-down,” remarked some of the Sherwoodians.
