PARAKH to unify the central and state board school exams

New Delhi: The central government mulls introducing a standard-setting body to unify the public exams conducted by the state and the central school boards. The National Council of Educational Research and Training has begun discussions about setting up PARAKH (Performance Assessment Review and Analysis of Knowledge for Holistic Development) to improve the quality of education in the country. Discussions are being held with various state school boards and The State Councils of Educational Research and Training.

Besides the central boards like the CBSE, every state has a school board of its own. The public exams of classes 10 and 12 are conducted by these boards. The exam pattern, evaluation criteria and the standard of various school boards often create confusion during admission time to colleges. It is in this context that the government plans to introduce a common system that properly assesses the educational quality of the students and ensures the standardization of exams.

NAAC, NBA

New Delhi: The central government is keen on merging the agencies that accredit and ranks the institutes of higher education in the country. The National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) and the National Board of Accreditation (NBA) will be merged to make the evaluation process easier. While NAAC gives accreditation to universities and colleges NBA deals with the accreditation of technical education institutes. Besides, NBA manages the National Institute Ranking Framework (NIRF) too. The National Education Policy had proposed a general accreditation framework.