What is SHAALA SIDDHI?

The National Program for School Standards and Evaluation (NPSSE), known as Shaala Siddhi, is a comprehensive school evaluation tool that leads to school improvement. Developed by the National University of Educational Planning and Administration (NUEPA), it aims to enable schools to assess their performance in a more targeted and strategic manner, and to make it easier for them to make professional judgments for improvement.

The NPSSE (Shaala Siddhi) is an initiative to assess schools and improve the quality of school education, covering both primary and secondary levels. It aims to support the continuous assessment of each school with a view to its development and improvement. The Shaala Siddhi program aims to reach 1.62 million schools in the country.

The aim is to develop a common understanding among those involved about the what, why and how of school evaluation. As part of Shaala Siddhi’s efforts, the School Standards and Assessment Framework (SSEF) is being developed as a tool for assessing school performance. The SSEF will help schools strategically and purposefully assess their performance against clearly defined criteria. The SSEF has flexibility that makes it well suited for customization, contextualization, and translation into country-specific languages.

It is designed as a strategic tool for external self-assessment. The eSamiksha School Assessment Dashboard was developed as part of the SSEF to make it easier for each school to provide a consolidated assessment report, including prioritization of areas for improvement. Each school must log into the School Assessment Dashboard and provide details of their assessment. School assessment details are consolidated at the block, cluster, district, state, and national levels to identify common areas of intervention to improve school performance and school-specific assessment needs.

National Programme on School Standards and Evaluation

The  NPSSE means School Assessment because the NPSSE goal is School Improvement. The aim is to evaluate the individual school and its performance continuously and holistically and thus achieve gradual improvements.

The main objectives of ShaalaSiddhi are as follows:

1. To develop a technically sound conceptual framework, tool, methodology and process for school evaluation that caters to the diversity of Indian schools.
2. Establish an institutional mechanism and develop a critical mass of human resources for the contextualization and adaptation of school assessment practices across states.
3. Building the capacity of schools and system-level officials to institutionalize school assessment with the goal of continuous and sustainable school improvement.

Self-Evaluation of schools

The schools’ self-assessment is considered to be the core of the evaluation process. The Shaala Siddhi helps schools assess their critical performance areas. The school as a whole needs to be involved in the self-evaluation process. Schools must follow certain guidelines in order to make an accurate professional judgement.

The guidelines for the self-assessment process are as follows:

1. Develop preparedness.
2. Capture stakeholder voices.
3. Gather evidence.
4. observation in class.
5. observations at school.
6. Identification and registration of the operating status of the school.
7. document review.
8. Formulating the Continuous Improvement Action Plan (ACIP).
9. Identification of strengths and opportunities for improvement.
10. Integrating ACIP into the school development plan.