A report on the oral assessments conducted at all Asha supported schools in 2024.

Oral Assessment 2024-25

Since 2015-16, we at Asha have been actively conducting assessments at schools supported by us. The oral assessments are conducted using the toolkit developed by Pratham as part of their ASER survey. These are gross tools which are useful to understand the level of learning among the children in the school. Our written assessments are more detailed and provide a clearer picture of the gaps in the learning.

In addition to conducting the assessments we also gather sociological data which helps in understanding the causes of poor performance by a school or group.

With this goal in mind, we started out Oral assessments at all our projects in October. We covered 188 schools, evaluating 14,733 students in both Tamilnadu and Uttar Pradesh.

You may view the album here.

Every year, teachers are trained in the process of conducting these assessments. The trainings were done both online by Mr. Rajaraman and offline by teachers at their locations. There are a number of aspects of Pratham’s ASER that are subjective and can influence the results from a school and therefore it is important that the teachers conduct the assessment the same way.

Oral assessments are conducted in English, Tamil/Hindi and Math. The question papers are printed at each of our projects by Project Coordinators who them distribute them amongst the teachers.

Oral Assessments 2024-25

Project Sangamam

Oral assessments were conducted in 86 schools at Thiruvallur. 43 teachers were involved out of which 5 of the teachers were participating for the first time. The training was done on 1^st and 2^nd November, 2024. Assessments were conducted between 5 Nov to 12 Nov, 2024. Since 5 new teachers had joined, they did not conduct the assessment but observed the process with the others.

Project Pearl

In Thoothukudi district, we conducted oral assessments in all 28 schools of the Pearl Project in November 2024. A total of 17 teachers helped with the assessments. Mr. Rajaram held a meeting on Google Meet on November 2, 2024, to explain the process. Out of the 17 teachers, 7 were new to the process. The assessments started on November 5, 2024, and ended on November 11, 2024.

Project Thulasi

At our schools in Villupuram and Thiruvanamalai, we conducted oral assessement at 25 schools and 13 teachers, including 4 new teachers were involved. Online training was provided for all the teachers. The training was conducted between online on November 2^nd. The assessments were conducted between November 4-12, 2024.

Project PoornaVidhya and Manigal

Assessments were conducted at 12 schools in Chennai and vicinity. 11 teachers were involved in the assessment and one teacher was assigned to 25 students depending on the strength of the class. The teachers attended online training session and this year 3 new teachers were involved. The assessments went on from November 6-11, 2024. At some of the schools, we faced problem of finding adequate space to sit and conduct the assessments. However, we were able to complete them successfully and the teachers observed an improvement in the children this year.

Project Cauvery

In Thriuvarur, assessments were conducted at 18 schools supported by Asha. 7 teachers were involved out of which, 4 are conducting it for the first time. The training for assessments was done on 4 Nov,2024. Assessments were conducted between 05 Nov to 14 Nov,2024.

Project Sangamam Rajatalab

Rajatalab in Varanasi was one of the first projects to begin oral assessments. We covered 12 schools and 8 teachers were involved. Two teachers conducted the assessment where one of them was observer. Training for the teachers was conducted on 19 October, 2024. Assessments were conducted between 21-30 October, 2024.

Project Mirzapur

Mirzapur is a smaller project. We conducted assessments in 7 schools this year covering 470 students.

Data Gathering and Upload

After conducting the assessments, all the teachers continued the exercise of gathering the sociological data for the students. These included,

• Height and weight.

• Parents education.

• What kind of preschool education did the student have?

• Is the student regular with homework?

• Does the student come from the same hamlet as the school, neighboring hamlet or a little farther away?

• Attendance of the student.

They then submit the assessment data which went on till Dec 2024. See a separate report for the analysis of the results from the assessment- Asha Chennai Assessment Analysis