ASSET FAQ for Schools

What is ASSET?

ASSET stands for Assessment of Scholastic Skills through Educational Testing. It is a scientifically designed diagnostic test that can be taken by children studying in classes 3 to 10, irrespective of the boards in which they study.(change from 8 to 12)

How do we benefit from the ASSET test?

  • Overall Offering
  • Test Contents
  • Visual Design
  • Research Expertise
  • Unique Computerised Analysis Process

Overall Offering

  1. ASSET is a serious, diagnostic test - not a fun competition.
    That is why we do not offer an option for students to pick and choose subjects - and we strongly encourage schools to take it either full school or almost full school. The value of the feedback reduces if either of these is not done.
  2. Price
    In terms of quality of the paper and depth of analysis, ASSET is as good as or better than international tests (We benchmarked it with the Cambridge and NSW tests 2 years back - found that our analysis was far more detailed and questions more relevant for what we wanted to test.) We are one-tenth the price of the Cambridge test and between 50% and 70% of the NSW for a school depending on the number of students in the school.
  3. Responsive to school needs
    When a school talks to us, it is talking to the developers of ASSET. Similarly our developers are people who have taught in schools and regularly train teachers and interact with experts. We are able to make changes in the product or services based on feedback - this is not possible when the developer and the ‘distributor’ are different.

Test Contents

  1. ASSET was developed after a study of NCERT books (CBSE) as well as ICSE-recommended books and the curricula 3 states. Since then, the curriculums of 3 countries and many more states in India have been studied to ensure that the content is appropriate for students all over India.
  2. ASSET questions are not repeated across classes or rounds. Every single paper a child answers is a different one. This also can add to a school or teacher’s question bank.
  3. Specifically in the English paper, we try and maintain a mix of Indian passages, along with some foreign passages that are used. The context is one which is always understood by the child and relevant to her.
  4. In Science for example, some tests focus on recall-based questions; but even some of the popular foreign tests basically have a number of ‘data interpretation’ questions in the name of Science. We believe that data interpretation is an important Science skill, but should form not more than 10-15% of the questions in a paper.

Visual Design

  1. The ASSET papers have been designed by experts to be easy to read for a child taking a test. Font sizes have been scientifically selected for the different classes. We have found that this is particularly important since reading the question carefully is extremely important in a context where English is not the mother tongue.
  2. We have received feedback about Rough Working space in Maths and provide it, which is appreciated by students and teachers.

Research Expertise

  1. The team that develops ASSET has developed a detailed set of guidelines for good Question Making and has also conducted large scale assessment studies. Studies have been completed for the Gujarat Government, and EI is the World Bank’s partner in the World Bank’s largest assessment study currently in progress in rural Andhra Pradesh. A large scale study of student achievement in municipal schools across India supported by ICICI Bank is also in progress.
  2. The Research team has also completed a study on Learning Standards which studied the curricula of 6 countries and recommended Learning Standards for India. This study was funded by Wipro.
  3. While developing all the questions for Star World - Siddhartha Basu’s India’s Child Genius was a different experience, the rigour of referencing and expert verification it brought in, is now an integral part of ASSET.

Unique Computerised Analysis Process

A lot of technology goes into the analysis of the ASSET results. One interesting technology involves automatic matching and correction of student names allows us to ship the results to schools within 45 days or less. Note that, unlike other tests, ASSET papers are matched for every student, and the student gets a consolidated report across subjects!

What does ASSET test?

ASSET tests how well a child has understood the fundamentals of the subjects taught in schools and the skills she has acquired in these subjects. It does not test only the content of the textbooks, as exams tend to do.

Children are already burdened with exams in school. Is it not unfair to ask them to appear for another test?

ASSET is a low-stakes test. I.e. Its result does not pass or fail a child. It is a diagnostic test that helps the child, parent and teacher understand the strengths and weaknesses of the child in the basic subjects. It aims at improvement in skills for the child, not labelling the child. It is not an IQ test or an Olympiad that seeks to identify the toppers.

What happens after the ASSET test?

Being an objective type test, the answer sheets are checked by OMR. A detailed analysis of the results is prepared. Based on this, we send an analysis report for each child, identifying the areas of strengths and the areas where improvement is needed. We also provide suggestions on how to work on improving the areas of weakness.

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