Large Scale Assessments (LSAs) are instrumental in leading some revolutionary changes in the education sector. More and more agencies working in the education space are relying on LSAs to test, formulate and implement policy change. What are Large Scale Assessments and why have they received so much prominence in the recent past? More importantly, how does Class Saathi change the game in the LSA arena and how beneficial is using it in the field of education? We will explore all these questions in this article!
We will begin by understanding what Large Scale Assessments are and how they are implemented. To do this with clarity, we will also talk about the expenses, both material and human, that agencies have to incur to conduct LSAs.
Large Scale Assessments as the name suggests are assessments conducted on a large sample size through a series of standardized tests. Unlike regular assessments or examinations, LSAs do not test the proficiency of the students it is conducted on. Rather, it is an instrument through which organizations and policymakers test the learning achievement of students in a bid to understand the efficiency and effectiveness of education policy and other crucial domains that govern the everyday functioning of schools.
The monetary investment required in successfully conducting large scale assessments is very high. Let us analyse the costs here a little bit –
Assuming that a school has 30,000 students and LSAs are to be conducted for two subjects, Maths and Language, across two categories of students (primary and secondary). We will then collate the costs and other non-monetary expenses involved. Additionally, we are also going to assume that the average teacher salary is 50,000 INR/month or Rs. 225 per hour for standard 8 hour/28 days work month.
Now let us examine what expenses are incurred by schools at different stages of LSAs, from the drafting to the implementation.
a. The set-up process: Assuming that each paper takes 5 hours to draft and create, we are looking at 40 hours that go into only curating question papers for two subjects across two categories. Taking the above teacher salary into consideration, it will cost schools ₹18,000 alone to create the question paper.
b. Printing costs: If the cost of printing a paper is ₹0.5 and Maths has a total number of 10 pages and Language has a total of 20, the total amount of money spent printing question papers for students in primary and secondary school amounts to a whopping ₹18,00,000.
c. Grading: Assuming that a teacher takes 10 minutes to grade each paper, we can safely assume that a total amount of 40,000 hours are spent correcting 60,000 papers. In monetary terms, it would cost an organisation/school ₹9,000,000.
d. Documentation and Analysis: Here again we will operate on the assumption that teachers spend 40,000 hours simply documenting and analysing the results from the LSAs. in monetary terms, it would cost a school or organisation a mind-blowing sum of ₹4,50,000 at this stage.
e. Reporting: Assuming reporting takes 3 hours per school and there are 100 students per school, the human cost associated with reporting is 3,600 hours of labour or ₹8,10,000.
So all in all it takes about ₹12,078,000 which is equivalent to 45,680 human hours not including the logistics of it all.
With Class Saathi, here’s how you will be saving time and money-
a. The set-up process: Since teachers will still be giving us the content needed for the assessment, we will calculate the same amount as prescribed by the non-Saathi method. So let us assume that it takes ₹18,000 during the drafting process as well.
b. Deployment stage: TagHive Inc. offers LSA capabilities for a mere sum of ₹25 per student per assessment, which means for 30,000 students, the price is ₹3,000,000 and we require only 80 hours to deploy, use and analyse data points.
The TagHive Assessments platform saves over 4x the money and 575x the human hours required for just 1 year of assessments for 30,000 students.
However, this also does not account for the fact that through digitized assessments, organisations reduce the chances of using forged or erroneous data to formulate policies that can benefit students. What this method also does is help schools and other organisations reduce their carbon footprint by going digital. This also means that Class Saathi is helping people make eco-friendly decisions by discouraging the use of unnecessary stationery and most importantly paper.
Want to know more about our Large Scale Assessment platform? Write to us at [email protected].