The 2011 census revealed that in India, 2.1% of the population have some disability; of which 45% are illiterate. Further, 600,000 children aged between 6 and 13 years are out of school. Learning levels of these children who are in the school or out of school remain unknown at the systemic level, since various national level surveys were not equipped to assess the learning levels of children with disabilities (CwDs), and there were no assessment programs that report on their progress or ensure their meaningful inclusion.

To address this concern and meet the various National and International commitments and recommendations, Assessment for All (AfA) Tool is developed by Pratham Education Foundation and CBM in India. AfA is a foundational learning assessment instrument that has built-in accommodations to include all learners (with and without disabilities), derived from the much-used ASER (citizen led assessment) tool. It is designed to be used in large scale assessments, classroom assessments and at home even by parents. It uses the ethos of open source, low cost, easy to understand, administer and report, imbibed in the ASER tool. The AfA aims to help all stakeholders within the education system (policy makers, administrators, teachers, parents and students) to highlight the problem of ‘visible schooling but non-visible learning’.

For more details: www.assessmentforall.org