ASSESSMENT PRACTICES AT SECONDARY SCHOOL LEVEL IN SIKKIM PERCEPTION of STAKEHOLDERS AND IDENTIFICATION OF POLICY GAPS

Abstract

The present study uses Mixed method research to investigate the various assessment practices at secondary school level alongside the stakeholders perception within the rather poorly investigated Indian State-Sikkim s educational system. Through questionnaire, interview, FGD, field verification schedule and observation, this study draws upon not only the perceptions of 120 teachers, 200 students and 40 SMDC members, but also the practices and problems associated with assessment practices of ten secondary schools from non-aspirational and ten secondary schools from aspirational Districts of the state. Moreover, during the qualitative phase, whilst not deliberately looking for locale, gender, experience, subject and training representativity, the final sample for interview and FGD were selected randomly which consisted of sixty secondary school teachers for interview, one FGD with students in each school which comprised of five students. A total of 20 FGDs were conducted. In addition, in order to study the effective practices related to assessment of learners adopted in selected secondary schools of Sikkim, in-depth Case Study of a Secondary School was also conducted. The quantitative data were analysed using both the descriptive and inferential statistics and the qualitative section of analysis addresses the themes that emerged from respondents responses that relate to the research questions and the assumptions that were made at the beginning of the study. The findings of the study indicate that although stakeholders had a better recognition of various aspects of assessment, there were certain level of dissimilarities in their perception of assessment practices owing to their different level of exposure to the changing trends in assessment practices. Moreover, newline