Written assessments were conducted in all our supported schools in Feb 2023. It was successfully conducted at over 150 schools,

Asha Chennai conduct an oral assessment and a written assessment every year at all our supported schools. Here is a report on the oral assessments that were conducted in Nov 2022.

Training was provided for all the project teachers on 18^th Feb. Written assessments were conducted from Feb 21st to Mar 8th. In schools where we had not conducted the oral assessments in Nov 2022, we also conducted the oral assessments.

Here are the photos taken from all our projects during the written assessments.

There were couple of major changes in the written assessments this year,

1. We conducted written assessments for middle schools as well. We conducted them at Sangamam and Pearl project schools. Other projects will also follow suit from next year. We conducted Maths and English tests for classes 2 to 8. As this was the first year we are conducting the assessment for classes 6 to 8. Setting the papers was a challenge.
2. Like the oral assessments the written assessment graded excel file is also submitted directly by the teacher on the server. If there are any errors, that will be flagged right there. As we have expanded substantially to 150 schools, doing things manually like previous years was not really an option. Therefore the teachers download filled in master files for all the papers in a school. They then enter the answer details for all the students/questions in the paper and upload this grading file to the server which validates. An administrator can then come and process these submissions.
3. Till now the written assessment paper corrections were only handled by volunteers and at Thiruvallur. This time we have also involved Pearl project teachers.

Assessments at Projects

Sangamam

Written assessments were conducted at all 89 schools supported by the project. Oral assessments were conducted at 3 of these schools where we started sending teachers recently. Written assessments were also conducted for classes 6 to 8 at most of the schools. I also personally visited the assessments at a few of the schools.

Pearl

Written assessments were conducted at all 28 schools supported by the project. Oral assessments were conducted at 8 of these schools where we started sending teachers recently. Written assessments were also conducted for classes 6 to 8 at all the schools.

Thulasi

Written assessments were conducted at all 22 schools supported by the project. Oral assessments were conducted at 2 of these schools where we started sending teachers recently. Written assessments were not conducted for classes 6 to 8. This will be started next year.

Poorna Vidhya, Manigal and Olcott

Written assessments were conducted at the 7 Poorna Vidhya schools, 2 Manigal schools and Olcott Memorial School. There were no new schools that required Oral assessments in these schools.. Written assessments were not conducted for classes 6 to 8. This will be started next year.

Cauvery

This is a new project this year and the support to schools started only in January. Written assessments were conducted at all 22 schools supported by the project. Oral assessments were conducted at all of these schools as. Written assessments were conducted for classes 6 to 8 as well at the 2 middle schools. Two teachers from Sangamam Geetha and Suganya travelled to Thiruvarur to show the teachers how these assessments should be conducted.

Next Steps

We have some 10000 sets of papers to correct from the 150+ schools. The corrections are mainly being handled at our Sangamam and Pearl projects. Some volunteers are also helping out with the corrections. Many of our teachers have the fifth day free to do content work. Teachers correct during the free-day. We are also paying one-day salary extra for teachers who can come and do correction work on Saturdays.

As the processing of the oral and written assessments at our servers has been implemented only this year, there have been several challenges related to this as well. These are also being addressed and the oral and written master files are submitted by the teachers. We expect this to flow smoothly next year.

We expect all the corrections and submissions to be completed by the end of March. These will be processed and reports generated to be distributed to the various schools before the 10^th of April which will give us sufficient time to distribute the reports before the end of the school year on April 28^th.