Q1. How do the PARAKH Rashtriya Sarvekshan (PRS) 2024 findings reflect the current state of foundational literacy and numeracy (FLN) across Indian states, particularly in early grades? How should policymakers interpret these results in the context of national education goals and National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 targets on foundational learning?

The PARAKH Rashtriya Sarvekshan (PRS) 2024 findings provide a powerful diagnostic lens into the status of Foundational Literacy and Numeracy (FLN) across Indian states, capturing learning outcomes at the end of the foundational stage. With data available at the district level, along with competency-wise insights in language and mathematics, the survey offers a granular picture of where children stand — not just in overall achievement but in specific skill areas essential for early learning.

For policymakers, this is a moment of both reflection and strategic planning. The results must be interpreted as a critical checkpoint in the journey toward the NEP 2020 goal of achieving universal FLN by 2026–27 through the NIPUN Bharat Mission. The PRS data should inform state-specific strategies — tailoring interventions based on local needs, realigning instructional focus in the early grades based on performance in key competencies and investing in teacher training, continuous assessment and in-classroom support systems.

Importantly, the disaggregated data — by school type, area, gender and socio-economic background — highlight the equity gaps that persist. The insights from the teacher, the school and pupil questionnaire also provide insights about the availability and usage of provided resources and technology.  These insights must drive inclusive policy design, enabling targeted resource allocation and community-based interventions to ensure that foundational learning reaches every child, especially the most marginalised.

In essence, PRS 2024 is more than a report card — it is a roadmap. It tells us where we are, yes, but more crucially, it lights the path forward. For India to meet its foundational learning ambitions, this data must be actively used to accelerate progress, enable responsive governance and strengthen last-mile delivery in classrooms across the country.

Q2. Given the role of PRS as a system diagnostic, how should education stakeholders — from teachers to administrators — use the 2024 report to drive meaningful change in the education ecosystem?

The PARAKH Rashtriya Sarvekshan (PRS) 2024 is conceptualised as a large-scale, system-level diagnostic assessment, designed not to evaluate individual students or schools, but to generate macro-level evidence that can inform policy decisions, programmatic reforms and strategic planning. As a tool anchored in equity and competency-based education, PRS provides granular insights that can be used to address systemic challenges and drive educational improvement at scale.

For Education Administrators and Policymakers:

The findings from PRS 2024 offer a robust evidence base to:

• Identify systemic inefficiencies and pedagogical constraints within the design and delivery of instructional programmes. These may include misalignments in curriculum delivery, gaps in teacher preparedness, or deficits in learning resource availability.
  
• Benchmark district and state-level performance over time and in relation to national performance standards. This comparative data enables monitoring of progress toward foundational learning goals and broader educational outcomes.
  
• Inform strategic resource allocation, including investment in capacity building, instructional material development and decentralized academic support mechanisms, by identifying areas of highest need and potential impact.

For Teachers and School-level Practitioners:

While PRS does not function as a classroom-level assessment, its findings can be instrumental in promoting instructional reflection and pedagogical adaptation. When district-level, competency-specific data is mapped alongside classroom-based formative assessment results, it can:

• Illuminate priority learning competencies where students consistently underperform, thereby guiding instructional focus.
  
• Support the design of targeted professional development initiatives that build teacher capacity in addressing specific learning deficits.
  
• Enable evidence-informed instructional planning and differentiated teaching strategies that are sensitive to local learning profiles.

For System Leaders and Academic Planners:

The translation of PRS insights into actionable system-level interventions is critical. Educational planners and academic authorities must play a catalytic role in:

• Revising curricular and instructional frameworks to embed targeted pedagogical responses to observed competency-level gaps.
  
• Adapting textbook content, learning materials and teacher education curricula to reflect the findings of PRS, ensuring alignment with expected learning outcomes.
  
• Strengthening academic leadership and instructional governance structures to provide sustained, evidence-based support to schools and teaching staff.

In sum, PRS 2024 serves as a strategic diagnostic mechanism that, when effectively utilised, can catalyze meaningful improvements in teaching quality, curriculum implementation and learner outcomes across the education system. The challenge and opportunity lie in ensuring that these high-level insights are translated into coherent, responsive and context-sensitive interventions at every tier of the system.

Q3. Given PRS is a system-level assessment, how should states balance its insights with classroom-based assessments to inform instruction and policy?

The PARAKH Rashtriya Sarvekshan and classroom-based assessments serve distinct yet complementary purposes in the broader educational assessment architecture. While PRS functions as a system-level, summative diagnostic that captures macro-level trends in learning outcomes and overall system performance, classroom assessments operate at the micro level, enabling formative feedback loops that guide day-to-day instructional decisions and support individual student learning trajectories.

States can utilise PRS findings to:

• Set or revise grade-level learning expectations by identifying consistently low-performing competencies across districts, thereby enabling the design of focused instructional interventions.
  
• Align classroom-based formative assessments with PRS competencies, ensuring vertical coherence in the assessment framework and reinforcing competency-based instruction throughout the system.

Notable examples of this alignment include: 

• CSF’s work Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh, where the states have adopted structured pedagogy models coupled with weekly formative assessments to track progress on foundational literacy and numeracy (FLN) skills. Teachers use this data to plan weekly interventions, ensuring students stay on track.
  
• Similarly, in Punjab and Odisha, regular spot assessments are conducted by academic mentors. These visits are followed by targeted feedback loops to teachers, enabling immediate course corrections and strengthening classroom instruction.

Crucially, assessments like PRS should not be viewed in isolation. The diagnostic insights generated by PRS must be contextualised and addressed through formative, low-stakes and developmentally appropriate assessment models, such as the Holistic Progress Card (HPC). These tools emphasize play-based and experiential learning and provide rich, multidimensional profiles of student learning.

By triangulating data from multiple sources — PRS, classroom assessments and formative tools like HPC — states can more effectively bridge the gap between policy intent and classroom practice, fostering an integrated and responsive learning system that is both evidence-driven and learner-centered.

Q4. What are the key methodological considerations and global best practices that should inform the design, implementation and use of large-scale learning assessments like PRS, particularly in ensuring reliability, inclusivity and actionable insights across diverse educational contexts?

Designing, implementing and using large-scale learning assessments like the PARAKH Rashtriya Sarvekshan (PRS) requires balancing psychometric robustness, contextual relevance and policy usability. Methodological soundness is essential to ensure that the data generated is both reliable and actionable across India’s highly diverse educational landscape.

• Validity and Reliability: assessment items must be grade-appropriate, culturally contextualised and rigorously tested for psychometric validity. For instance, questions should align with foundational learning competencies as described in the National Curriculum Framework-Foundational Stage (NCF-FS, 2022) while being sensitive to regional contexts (e.g.,language, cultural context etc. ).
  
• Inclusivity and Accessibility: large-scale assessments like the PRS must reflect India’s linguistic, regional and socio-economic diversity. Best practices include administering tests in multiple regional languages, ensuring accessibility for children with disabilities and minimizing biases that could affect performance (e.g., gender, region etc.). For example, UNESCO’s GAML framework emphasizes adaptive tools for inclusivity in multilingual settings.
  
• Sampling and Comparability: a scientifically rigorous sampling design is critical for state/district-level representation. Stratified random sampling, like that used in NAEP (USA) and PISA (OECD), helps ensure representativeness and credibility.
  
• Transparency and Data Use: openly publishing sample test items and methodologies and making disaggregated, anonymized data available builds public trust and supports independent research.
  
• Usability and Interpretation: Results should be presented with clear visuals and summaries tailored for stakeholders at all levels. Dashboards or state/district-level report cards can help planners take localized action.
  
• Global Alignment: Mapping the assessment’s constructs to global benchmarks (e.g., SDG 4.1.1(a), Global Proficiency Framework) enables India to position its progress internationally while retaining local relevance.

Ultimately, PRS-like large-scale assessments will only succeed if they drive evidence-based, equity-driven reforms, empowering states to act on data and improve foundational learning outcomes for all.