A digital trail to track learning gaps

Govt weighs Tk 124cr project to monitor progress of students from classes 1 to 12

• Each student to get a unique Edu-ID

• Records to track progress from classes 1 to 12

• Platform to identify learning gaps

• Teachers to enter data, generate progress reports

• Experts question lack of common assessment standards

• Pilot rollout proposed before nationwide expansion

The government is planning a digital platform to store assessment records of students from classes 1 to 12, helping teachers track their progress and identify learning gaps.

Under the proposed “Unified Assessment System” (UAS), each student will receive a unique identification number, or Edu-ID, linked to their records across grades to create a “learning trajectory”, according to officials.

The platform will not determine how students are assessed or graded. Instead, teachers will enter assessment data into the system, which will generate progress reports and tabulation sheets.

A revised proposal for the Tk 124 crore project was recently sent to the Planning Commission for evaluation, according to a document from the Secondary and Higher Education Division.

Prof Khan Moinuddin Al Mahmud Sohel, acting director general of the Directorate of Secondary and Higher Education (DSHE), told this newspaper that the commission is yet to discuss the proposal and might suggest changes.

Shefatul Islam, research officer at DSHE’s Research and Innovation Section, said student records are largely maintained by individual institutions, making it difficult to track progress across grades.

For instance, a student scoring 70 in math may perform well in algebra but struggle with geometry. Records maintained over several years could help identify such weaknesses, he said.

Shefatul said the National Curriculum and Textbook Board (NCTB) will continue to design assessment methods, with UAS adapting to any changes. 

Nationwide data will also help NCTB identify textbook topics that students repeatedly struggle with, he added. 

The platform could eventually be expanded to include madrasa and technical education, he also said.

UAS is part of the proposed Tk 3,397 crore NextGen Secondary Education Programme, scheduled for January 2027 to December 2031. The programme also includes teacher training, digital classrooms and artificial intelligence laboratories.

Shefatul said funding for UAS could come from the Global Partnership for Education, a multi-stakeholder partnership hosted by the World Bank.

QUESTIONS OVER EFFECTIVENESS

Samir Ranjan Nath, programme head at the BRAC Institute of Educational Development at BRAC University, said, “The platform will undoubtedly generate a large dataset. However, the meaning of the data is a major question, as our school system lacks common assessment standards.”

“Weak classroom teaching and academic supervision are the bigger problems. Without improving the quality of classroom teaching, no assessment or record-keeping exercise involving unique IDs can serve the purpose,” he told The Daily Star.

Samir suggested tracking core subjects at primary and secondary levels and stream-specific subjects from class 9, rather than every subject in every grade.

Experts also cited past initiatives that failed to achieve their intended outcomes.

A School-Based Assessment pilot for classes 6 to 9 in 2005 found “widespread limitations” in evaluation and record-keeping. Only 17.4 percent of participating teachers had received training.

About three years ago, a digital assessment platform named Noipunno was introduced under the competency-based curriculum. A 2024 NCTB survey of 253,000 teachers found that 37.6 percent only “roughly” understood the assessment system.

Samir recommended piloting USA, the latest project, in a few upazilas before a nationwide rollout and strengthening oversight through upazila education offices.

“Teachers should be creators of assessment tools, assessors, and users of assessment results to improve classroom teaching and learning,” he said.

Shefatul said UAS was intended to reduce teachers’ paperwork, not increase their workload. “Teachers will enter data only if the system saves them time.”

The platform could initially be piloted in a few districts, replacing existing registers and report cards with an offline data-entry system, he added.