Following the instructions, the state school education department established the State School Standard Authority (SSSA), which will be in charge of assessing schools based on the SQAAF requirements.
Schools in Maharashtra will henceforth be graded from A+ to C, indicating the level of education provided, much like higher education institutions. Schools will be required to show these grades, and the state will create a dedicated website with aggregated data on these gradings so that parents may quickly access this information.
Schools will have to undergo periodic evaluations to obtain an appropriate grade based on its performance under various parameters like basic infrastructural facility, teaching-learning standards, safety and security of children and inclusivity and gender-equality on campuses.
The school education department on Friday declared a School Quality Assurance & Accreditation Framework (SQAAF) which elaborates various parameters on which schools will be evaluated. The State Council for Educational Research and Training (SCERT) prepared the SQAAF as per the guidelines developed by the National Council for Educational Research and Training (NCERT), based on a recommendation by the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020.
Following the instructions, the state school education department established the State School Standard Authority (SSSA), which will be in charge of assessing schools based on the SQAAF requirements. The SSSA will be a six-member body led by the director of SCERT. It will create a dedicated webpage where schools must disclose all information. While schools will do individual self-evaluations annually, the SSSA will determine the frequency of evaluations. The SSSA-developed website will make the collected data available to the general public.
As SCERT official mentioned saying “It will be a procedure based on self-declaration of information related to schools. Each school will have to submit its data on this website, in the standardised format designed as per the parameters defined under SQAAF. Every year, schools will do self evaluation to obtain grades. But there will be an external or third-party evaluation every two years, which will ensure verification of the data submitted by the school. Based on these evaluations, schools will be graded. Schools will have to display these grades, whereas individuals will also have access to this information on the dedicated website prepared by the SSSA.”
