Assam to start Gunotsav in Jan, to use app for assessment

Guwahati: Assam govt will launch its annual state-wide exercise to evaluate the quality of school education, ‘Gunotsav 2025', in Jan next year, encompassing over 44,000 schools across all 35 districts, an official statement said on Friday. Novel features are being implemented for the forthcoming evaluation, including a mobile phone application for the submission of reports and assessment of uniforms. ‘Gunotsav' was initially organised in the state in 2017, and five rounds of this assessment have already been executed, spanning all districts. The exercise will be carried out across all 35 districts in three phases, encompassing 44,094 schools – govt/provincialised, tea garden model schools, Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalayas, Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose Avasiya Vidyalaya, Adarsha Vidyalayas, and tea garden managed schools. A total of 3,965,081 students from classes 1 to 9 will be included in the initiative. Barpeta, Bajali, Karimganj, Kamrup, Karbi Anglong, Kokrajhar, Lakhimpur, Nagaon, Sivasagar, South Salmara Mankachar, and Udalguri will be covered in the first phase from Jan 6 to 9. Baksa, Chirang, Charaideo, Dhemaji, Dhubri, Golaghat, Hailakandi, Hojai, Jorhat, Kamrup (Metro), Sonitpur, Tamulpur, Tinsukia, and West Karbi Anglong will be covered in the second phase from January 17 to 22. Bongaigaon, Biswanath, Darrang, Dibrugarh, Goalpara, Cachar, Nalbari, Morigaon, Dima Hasao, and Majuli will be covered in the third phase from Feb 5 to 8. Principal features include 10 percent weightage of marks to be considered from the annual examination, incorporation of the schedule of Gunotsav in the academic calendar, absent students to be considered in school grading, and on the day of external evaluation, teachers to be interchanged within the cluster.Among new features is a Gunotsav mobile application, supplementing the existing Gunotsav web portal. The application facilitates the submission of schools' evaluation components and observation reports of external evaluators. Assessment of uniform has been incorporated as a distinct evaluation criterion as per the chief minister's directive. The external evaluator shall assess various indicators/descriptors of uniform and submit observations through the portal or application. The observation report of the external evaluator during Gunotsav 2024 will be displayed in the Gunotsav Portal 2025. The external evaluator of Gunotsav 2025 shall examine whether action against the previous observation report was undertaken, and views/comments will be uploaded in the new observation format.