Why is LSA so important in India?

Image by tjevans from Pixabay

Large Scale Assessments, as the name suggests, are assessments conducted on large sample size. These tests are administered on a large number of people as a method of data collection through which researchers draw inferences on pertinent areas like policy impact, test accountability in the education field, and more.

LSAs have gained traction in the last decade as most countries of the world and education systems are working towards improving academic performances at a policy level. Now, this brings us to a major question – why are Large Scale Assessments important?

Let us paint a picture here in the Indian context – The Indian education system has over a million public schools that are presided over by various bodies at the district, state and national levels. Let us take for granted that the national education authority has its headquarters in New Delhi. How can officials in Delhi monitor the efficiency of their policy in a district of, let’s say, Kerala, which is one of the Southern states in the country? Through Large Scale Assessments of course.


Large Scale Assessments are standardised based on specific metrics that measure and collate vital information for researchers and policymakers to use. LSAs are also called Impact Assessments that usually take stock of student data in two phases: 

  1. Before Policy Implementation.
  2. After Policy Implementation, usually towards the end of an academic year.

The logic is very simple then – what were student performances like before the implementation of the policy and what is it after the implementation of it. Before Large Scale Assessments go live, researchers also conduct pilot tests in smaller groups and draw expected inferences from the test group. So if the findings from the LSAs in any district or subgroup are widely deviant, then researchers can also find out what channels in the education ecosystem are not performing their duties properly. 

As you can see, it is a method of assessing students with the aim of testing the efficiency of the education system that serves them. How wildly important is that?

India has legislated education as a system that is free and compulsory for all. When the stakes are so high and when 250 million students in India are accessing the public education system, the need for accountability and quality is of top priority.

Let us understand now how LSAs benefit students. The public education system serves students across the country with quality education in a bid to equalise opportunities available to everybody, even in some of the most rural and remote parts of the country. Our strength lies in the numbers – when there are so many students accessing education in the country, it increases the human resource index, potentially opening up the space to provide professionals with high skill value. This is aspirational of course. 

However, to ensure each and every student is covered under this scheme, LSAs provide a framework of observation for researchers so they can make decisions that enhance the quality of the educational experience. Students feel more empowered and confident when they know there is an authority in charge of guaranteeing them fair and equitable access. These bodies also make it a point to drive reforms and implement changes that can benefit students immediately.

Having said all of that, one thing must be clear to everybody by now – this LSA business is very time intensive and requires a huge human resource capital. People have to manually administer the tests from district to district and the data collation also happens manually. Once the reports are collated, another group of professionals spend time analysing the reports before sending them to the higher authorities. Three separate groups of professionals are required to simply administer and collate the data.

Photo by Pixabay from Pexels

With the introduction of the National Education Policy 2020, there is a grave need to cast Large Scale Assessments throughout the country. The big challenge here is accessing a channel of human resources at a time when movement is restricted due to the pandemic. Students cannot be reached easily, schools do not function fully and officials have all been instructed to be where they are. We must also accept that the pandemic has been extremely expensive for the country and has affected all public spending to make matters grimmer. Additionally, it is also important to note that manual data gathering leads to high error counts. How do we ensure that LSAs can happen efficiently through all these challenges?


We at TagHive Inc. have the answer for you! We have built a flexible system that enables the formulation and implementation of Large Scale Assessments. Our platform is content, grade, curriculum and language agnostic. We create fields to accommodate the diverse requirements emerging from the field and we enable the implementation of LSAs in a short period of time. All students, teachers and school administrators need to do is download our app and log in using the credentials provided to implement the test. Post the implementation, we collate reports and analyses based on the requirements prescribed.

So, what are we offering here? We offer a platform that is fully customizable to fit all the criteria mentioned. We also collate, report and analyse the data coming in to show policymakers, educators and researchers vital information at both macro and micro levels. 

We entered the field of LSAs through our partnership with Kaivalya Education Foundation by providing them with a platform to conduct Large Scale Assessments in two phases: 

  1. Baseline.
  2. Endline.

Over 10,000 assessments were conducted, analysed and reported on in a matter of months. Find more details on the project here.

Problems will happen regardless of a smooth functioning global environment. As the saying goes, “adversity is the mother of all invention”, and keeping this in mind, we have created technology that surmounts all these challenges and so much more!

Want to conduct Large Scale Assessments by saving time and increasing efficiency? Connect with us for more information, demos or partnership opportunities. Write to us at [email protected]!

Creating Equitable Opportunities – Class Saathi democratises education

The global technology revolution has surely made the world a smaller place. According to Our World in Data, 27,000 people are online for the first time every hour. Imagine the potency of this statistic – what is it like living in a globe where ease of access has allowed for the world to communicate and learn on such a large scale? What does this mean for all the people who are able to get onboard with this paradigm shift?

To say the least, the world of technology and the internet have managed to create a fairly democratic virtual world. Information sharing has been so easy, especially for companies and think tanks working in education. This new age of information technology has also given birth to what we know as education technology – an avenue that has created opportunities for companies to create digital learning experiences for students even in the most remote areas of the world. One such company is ours, and at TagHive, we believe that we are empowering a truly democratic system through our product, Class Saathi.


Let us explore how Class Saathi enables democratising education:

1. Our at home learning app has free quizzes for learning:

Gone are the days where students have to pay hefty money to access learning packages. We have made it possible for students everywhere to access quizzes and learning manuals designed by IIT-ians for free. Log on to our Class Saathi app to test your knowledge!

We offer 25k+ practice questions for free in our at-home learning app.
We offer in our at-home learning app 25k+ practice questions for free.

2. We bring experts to students free of cost:

We have put together learning guides and assessments designed by some of the leading minds across the country. Students can avail their services without incurring any cost through our at-home learning app. Our only aim is to improve learning outcomes of students everywhere so that they can access equitable learning opportunities.

3. Our technology is adaptable:

We provide services that can adapt to different environments without any additional investments. Our products are highly adaptable and very dynamic and it is designed to cater to everybody, regardless of their socio-economic circumstances. What could be more levelling and democratic than that?

Class Saathi can be used at school or home with and without mobile or computer.
Class Saathi is highly adaptable – it can cover any type of learning environment.

4. Holds all stakeholders equally responsible:

In a democracy, all levels of participants are held accountable for their duties. Class Saathi believes in connecting all the major stakeholders in the learning process– parents, teachers and admins. This is a truly democratic system since everybody is working to realise common educational goals without the need for asserting any hampering hierarchies.

5. Makes students independent and helps them make informed decisions:

Democracy enables the exercising of informed decision making. When students can drive their own learning outcomes through real-time assessment scores, they know exactly where they need to consolidate their focus. Class Saathi helps students by giving them real-time feedback and concept based tutorials so students can drive their own learning outcomes.

Class Saathi lets students drive their own learning outcomes with our feedback-revision flow.
Class Saathi lets students drive their own learning outcomes with our feedback-revision flow.

We know that the advent of technology and the internet paved ways for many new opportunities. Having said that, we are also aware that this growing need for technology and the internet have birthed a new variety of problems – the digital divide. On one hand, we have the world growing into a smaller place, but on the other side, we see people falling off the access channels simply because they are too poor to afford it. That is where we enter to make an impact. We have consolidated effort and resources to make sure a first generation student in some remote part of the country has the same access to information as a third generation college aspirant. We make this possible either by attaching a very nominal cost or even free.

Would like to discuss how Class Saathi can help you? Reach out to us at [email protected] now!

What is the best solution for Formative Assessments?

We have all been part of an academic ecosystem that made exams feel like the apocalypse. We learnt to hate examinations and dreaded that time of the year schools would shut for terminals. It only mattered if you scored 90% or more or came in the top three. Everybody else passed and reached the next level.

Student solving an imagery question
What do you think about exams?

In all fairness, Summative Examinations are not the marker of great student potential. Most education systems are built around the premise of training students to be exam-oriented. No remediation is offered to students who score average or below class average marks since the objective is to either pass or make it to the top three.

If you’re in the top 3, you require no attention or additional coaching. If you’re below the class average, you have to be thankful you passed. If you’re in the class average, you can make the choice of aspiring for the top 3 or be at great risk of slipping further. In this rat race, examinations have somehow become the only priority for teaching instead of it being a framework to target a student’s learning lags. That is why we have decided to intervene, to disrupt this rather ineffective, time-wasting model, by championing Formative Assessments.


We need to first understand what Formative Assessments or FAs are. Simply put, FAs have a diagnostic role in academics in that they are short examinations either after a chapter or a unit, that displays learning lags and helps teachers reflect on each child’s problem areas which in turn, helps them curate better teaching strategies. Let us quickly look over the advantages of FAs:

  1. Regular, short assessment models have proven to give better student results
  2. Have proven to improve student motivation because of its highly learning-driven approach
  3. A foolproof feedback system of a teacher’s ability to teach and a student’s learning gaps
  4. Creates more engaged students as they see their struggles being remediated and closed
  5. Makes learning goals more defined and a lot more achievable to students

Now, here’s how Class Saathi has championed FAs:

  1. Our working model: We have designed a unique intervention program that uses FAs as a stop-gap method to create more access for students who need support over affirmations.
  2. Our assessments: Are all short, multiple-choice questions that have concepts at the core instead of full chapters. Each question comes with a solution and a video tutorial for a student to use, to review their own performance and learn better.
  3. Data-driven and real-time: A student loses no time or opportunity to learn from their assessment results since they are calculated immediately and have demonstrative solutions to address the problems.
  4. Time-saving for both students and teachers: Institutions dread having an FA model as it requires more effort and work from teachers. This burden is lifted from teachers since Class Saathi provides an endless reserve of quizzes designed by some of the leading minds in the country. With quality assured and the burden eliminated, teachers are now free to address student problems without stressing about grunt administrative work.
  5. Transparency: The student results are free from manipulation as the scores are automated. This eliminates any space for teacher-student bias from the learning space.
  6. Creates awareness among various stakeholders: FAs are only successful if all the major parties involved in learning are connected through this model. Class Saathi brings together all the teachers, students, parents and administrators in one place. All three parties of facilitation can now target their efforts towards a shared goal: the student!
  7. Eliminates fear: Summative Assessments provides scope for students to be judged by their class performance. With the FA system, Class Saathi creates a safe practise space for students to be in charge of their learning without any fear of judgement from peers, teachers, parents or admins. This is because, with Class Saathi, the objective is clearly stated. Assessments are for learning and not of learning!

We truly feel that Class Saathi can be a great product for students. What we also believe is that it is a blessing for teachers and administrators since we reduce their administrative burden. With Class Saathi, they have all the time in the world to focus their efforts on what they ideally should – each and every student!


If you’d like to learn more about how Class Saathi works, check out these videos from our YouTube channel:
How Class Saathi Connects All Stakeholders https://youtu.be/blbgwLGGTy0
Virtual Assessments with Class Saathi https://youtu.be/Dq-CvgnyKXU
Class Saathi Homework Solution https://youtu.be/e744_5GUPGg
& Class Saathi Monitoring Solution https://youtu.be/4oLQBo9OzXg
or email us at [email protected] to discuss the best option for you!