Goa chief minister Pramod Sawant on Thursday questioned school principals on the poor performance of students from the state in the National Achievement Survey (NAS).

The Central government’s NAS is a mechanism to assess the health of the school education system by comprehensively evaluating learning competencies of children at classes III, V, VIII and X.

Addressing the state level conference for school heads organized by the Goa Headmasters’ Association in Panaji, the chief minister said, “When our students fared poorly in Maths and Science in NAS, people were not criticizing schools but there was a direct question mark raised on the state government. The state government was held responsible for the poor ranking in the NAS.”

“Despite providing good school infrastructure in comparison to other states and good pay scales to teachers, why is the performance so poor? This is a question that is haunting me, the chief minister, who himself holds the education portfolio, said.

He said the race to have cent per cent results in the Secondary School Certificate examinations by schools was leading to a huge number of students dropping out in Class IX.

Praising the New Education Policy, the CM said it addresses the practical issues faced by students and he thanked Prime Minister Narendra Modi for starting a separate skilling ministry.

“The last education policy was introduced in 1986, which focused on ensuring no one is left without school education. The NEP speaks of skilling and every teacher should take this policy seriously, he added.

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