PARAKH-NCERT Holds Sessions With State Boards To Implement New NEP-Aligned Report Cards – News18

Last Updated:March 19, 2025, 09:54 IST

Holistic Progress Cards are the new report cards developed for different school stages by PARAKH-NCERT to track students’ progress in a comprehensive manner instead of the traditional report cards that just focus on the marks obtained in each subject

PARAKH, a standard-setting body under the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT), has been conducting workshops with school education boards across the country to start implementing the Holistic Progress Cards (HPCs) — a new format of assessment — at the secondary stage.

While most state boards have implemented HPCs at the foundational and preparatory levels, they are yet to implement it at the secondary stage (classes 9 to 12). The initiative is being taken under the education ministry’s department of school education and literacy.

HPCs are the new report cards developed for different school stages by PARAKH-NCERT to track students’ progress in a comprehensive manner instead of the traditional report cards that just focus on the marks obtained in each subject. This was done in line with the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020, which envisages holistic assessment of students.

PARAKH functions as the standard-setting body for student assessment and evaluation for all school boards across the country.

While the HPCs for foundational stages (up to grade 2), preparatory stage (grades 3 to 5) and middle school (grades 6 to 8) were told to be implemented last year, the HPCs for secondary stage (grades 9 to 12) were released in June last year.

The HPC considers feedback from peers, parents, as well as self-assessment of students to track their progress in different domains throughout the year. For senior classes, the progress card also includes parameters such as their plans for future, career choices, vocational skills that they have acquired or plan to pursue.

‘Boards to prepare their own roadmap’

PARAKH is working with 34 school boards for implementing HPCs. The workshops that started this January have so far covered school boards under states and Union Territories (UTs) including — Andaman & Nicobar, Gujarat, Maharashtra,Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Haryana, Chandigarh, Karnataka, Chhattisgarh, Punjab, Jammu and Kashmir (J&K), Nagaland, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Mizoram, Delhi and Manipur.

Prof Indrani Bhaduri, CEO and head of PARAKH, said while most state boards have already implemented foundational and preparatory level HPCs, they are yet to implement it for middle and secondary stages. “Each board is preparing their own roadmap to implement this format of assessment. The workshop emphasises on creating uniform assessment frameworks to bridge disparities across educational boards,” she said.

The workshops are being attended by teachers and principals from education zones and districts falling under each of the boards, who will be the master trainers for mentoring their respective departments on designing the assessment practices.

According to a feedback letter to PARAKH from the Gujarat Secondary and Higher Secondary Education Board on the workshop, it will form a core committee of the teachers who participated in the workshop. “The committee will prepare a roadmap for implementation of HPC and standardised assessment practices. This committee will present its roadmap to the Board, and based on their recommendations, the timelines for its execution in schools will be decided,” the letter read.

However, participants from various boards said the workshops were insightful yet there are challenges still in designing authentic activities that effectively assess targeted competencies.

“The workshop helped clear the doubts on the HPCs format, especially for science and mathematics. But it will take more sessions to design the activities, against which students will be evaluated,” a teacher from a Delhi school, who participated in the workshop held last month, said.

Another participant from Haryana said developing clear rubrics (a scoring tool that helps assess components of a specific assignment) will need more time and focus to achieve the desired results.

JH Zoremthanga, chairperson, Mizoram Board of School Education, said the board is working on developing a strategy to implement the HPCs for each of the stages. “The sessions with PARAKH were beneficial in terms of understanding the format for teachers, who will be at the forefront of assessment. We are working out a roadmap to implement the same effectively,” he said.