Vyjayanthi Sankar

Vyjayanthi is a pioneer in designing and conducting large-scale diagnostic assessments that uncovers rote learning among students in India and Bhutan. She is now cloning and making accessible, her highly sophisticated tool and approach, that not only empowers any teacher or school to gain critical feedback on when a child is not learning, but to also find out why and change the way the teaching-learning takes place.

Vyjayanthi works in assessment, which is sometimes described as the third pillar of education in India, the other two being curriculum and pedagogy. She is shifting assessments from acting as judgments or stamps of performance to working as a deep examination of what a student is taking away from learning in a classroom. More importantly, she is developing mechanisms for such diagnostic assessments to act as critical and continuous feedback loops for teachers, schools and governments to improve curriculum and pedagogy.

Vyjayanthi has led large-scale diagnostic assessments across India and South Asia, through a private entity. She handled difficult relationships with multiple state and private entities and orchestrated a team of over 1000 people to conduct the largest study and assessment process. Although this gave valuable insights into how the teaching-learning process is taking place and actionable insights for improvement, Vyjayanthi realized the greater need to take assessments out of the gamut of a handful of private players and make sure they are accessible to and becoming an integral part of the education system in the South Asian region. In collaboration with universities and governments in the region, she is setting up a center that will train her replicators, among existing educators and those still to come, who will have skills in diagnostic assessments. Through workshops, online and offline courses, fellowships and diplomas, she will equip government officers and teachers and create a new cadre of professionals for the sector. Similar to a medical university that has a hospital attached to it, the center will also have a learning lab attached to it. This learning lab will create the live space to engage in benchmarking studies, pedagogical studies and policy advocacy for data based approach to improving curriculum and pedagogy at national and regional levels.

Empowered with the skills that Vyjayanthi has been piloting in India and Bhutan, teachers will be able to set questions in a manner that gives insights into conceptual understanding among students and be able to look at wrong answers and understand the learning gaps or misconceptions held by a child. It allows them to separate components of failure and instead see an opportunity to build conceptual understanding. By building such a talent for assessments, she envisions equipping the South Asia region with the ability to make diagnostic assessments an integral part of the education system.

As the world moves deeper into the knowledge economy, it has become more urgent than ever before for children to move from rote learning to gain deeper understanding of concepts and principles. Unfortunately, despite 30 years of effort to improve education, most of India and the South Asian region still follow the rote learning process. This is reflected in the 2010 Student Learning Survey (SLS) conducted by Educational Initiatives that shows that India’s “top schools”, students were nearly two years behind their international counterparts on questions used by Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS).

This is because most education initiatives have focused on transforming only two pillars of education - curriculum (what is to be taught-learnt) and pedagogy (how it is to be taught-learnt) and have failed to address a third – assessments, that tells them how well they’re succeeding. The questions in existing assessments are themselves “rote” - stuck to judging a rote way of learning. There is little incentive for schools or teachers to introduce changes in curriculum and pedagogy when examinations and assessments are still structured around assessing a child’s ability to memorize, repeat and regurgitate information. This only leaves teachers knowing whether or not a student answered the question correctly and fails to provide any insights into why students are answering questions both correctly and incorrectly on exams, or unravel any misconceptions. They are not built to enable the teachers to understand why the child did not know an answer or why they answered a question wrong or what they can do to improve the learning outcomes.

For example, when given the question to identify which shape in a series was a square, about 40.9% of the students could identify the correct shape. However, when the same shape was tilted, only about 28% of students saw it as a square. This evidence suggests that a student is unable to understand the concept of a square as a shape with four equal sides and four equal 90-degree angles It is critical for questions to be structured in a manner that would highlight such common gaps in understanding. Without this feedback, school administrators do not have a clear view of gaps in teaching skills that they can bridge. As long as assessments are still structured around the rote learning process, the system is unlikely to transform.

The larger cost is that children, especially the poor, are not prepared for the knowledge economy. They are not gaining the foundation in concepts or developing as critical thinkers. While several leaders, including the first Ashoka Fellow, Gloria de Souza, raised the same issue, have led critical changes in curriculum and pedagogy, as long as assessments remain stuck in rote, the system will not transform.

There is a need for assessments to urgently move towards unraveling whether children truly understand concepts and principles. Questions in assessments need to be structured to push a child to think and function as a feedback tool. Rather than acting as a judgment on the students abilities, it has function as a critical feedback loop to teachers, schools and the educational system on gaps in understanding. Unfortunately today teachers and schools in the South Asian region are not equipped to design and use such assessment tools. Further unlike countries like the USA that have over 800 private assessing organizations, only a couple of private companies in South Asia have the skills to undertake assessments.

Today, with international and multilateral agencies like UNESCO pushing for data on learning outcomes to be able to support countries, there is a great opportunity for diagnostic assessments to be integrated into the education system. There is a need to build capacity within the region- at different levels, for assessments to act as a feedback loop on whether children are actually learning. A teacher needs to understand how to set questions and draw insights from the answers of children to understand how to improve his/her teaching. Similarly, a school needs to be able to see patterns and trends in subjects or concepts that students are struggling and rethink ways of improving pedagogy. At the system level or the state, assessments need to be able to provide feedback on how to improve curriculum and textbooks.

Vyjayanthi’s diagnostic tool is providing a new lens for teachers, schools and systems to understand and improve what a child is learning. The questions are carefully designed to capture common mistakes and misconceptions. For example, when given the question to identify which shape in a series (that included rectangle, triangle, circle, straight square) was a square, about 40.9% of the students could identify the correct shape. However, when the same square shape was tilted, only about 28% of students saw it as a square. This evidence suggests that a student is unable to understand the concept of a square as a shape with four equal sides and four equal 90-degree angles. It also shows a teacher that students are not identifying a tilted square as a square because they were always taught and assessed for their recognition of a square only in upright orientation.

Conducted as interviews with teachers and students, rather than written tests, the empathetic process of listening and gaining a deeper understanding of student responses, right or wrong, creates a space for a child to fearlessly respond. This functions as an excellent window into the students’ thought and enables the teacher to target the specific learning issues while designing the remediation for improving learning. The transformative process in itself, brings a mindshift change in teachers to prioritize what is learnt and understood and not what is taught. The interviews also reveal to the teacher the gaps in their own understanding as it allows them to explore and think about a concept in different ways along with the students. For example a teacher exploring the students’ misplaced understanding on the gaseous exchange in photosynthesis helps her realise that the curriculum never approaches photosynthesis and respiration as two processes happening simultaneously in plants. This helps her reflect on the connections children make and ensure that she fills these gaps while dealing with either concept in the classroom.

Having conducted such assessments in several private and public schools in India and given critical feedback, Vyjayanthi is now building her strategies to ensure that such a tool and process is accessible across South Asia.

Building on her skills and strong relationships with government, international and private entities in the region, she is looking to set up a new institution. It will strengthen the capacity for assessments and how they can very practically embed more understanding of how students learn into the practice of teachers and schools. She envisions a hybrid institution of learning, research and execution. Specifically, it will (a) conduct high quality research in diagnostics assessment and student learning to develop regular benchmarking studies at regional, national and state levels among others, (b) train and develop a world class pool of talent in diagnostic assessment (c) engage with range of governments and schools to make diagnostic assessments an integral part of their system and (d) communicate and advocate for use of data in policy and classrooms to improve learning outcomes.

Vyjayanthi is taking a collaborative approach to its implementation. She is setting up an organization to have maximum flexibility and sustainability to work with government and private stakeholders. She plans to create a non-profit entity that will partner with universities, like the South Asian University in New Delhi (an international university established by the eight member nations of SAARC). She believes this will give legitimacy with the governments and other stakeholders for effective execution and also create a unique opportunity within the academic space to nurture talent.

Vyjayanthi also plans to develop a regional metric focused on primary education, to assess the quality of learning across South Asia. She will work towards linking the regional assessment with some of the international assessments including Programme for International Student Asssment PISA and Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS). She believes this will also help attract outside expertise, professionals in the assessment space and make funding more easier to obtain. Ultimately, Vyjayanthi believes all this will lead to greater chance to influence the governmental system in India and across other South Asian countries. Focus on the South Asian region would also reduce conflicts with the existing statutory bodies like The National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT)c that conduct national surveys on education and make partnerships with the state governments easier.

Vyjayanthi plans to address the capacity challenge by both, (a) building skills of current teacher, government officers and others within the educational system to integrate assessments into their everyday work and (b) creating a new cadre of professionals with expertise on assessments. She will building their capacities through offering offline and online courses, and certification for assessments for teachers and other educational groups. She hopes to build long-term commitment from government entities to want to invest in building the capacity of its employees to have the skills need to conduct assessments and introduce such processes in public schools. Later she also plans to launch a specialized two-year diploma program targeting a small group of about 15 young graduates to give them academic and practical internship/hands-on experience in ‘live projects’. The plan is for it to be an intensive program with a small intake of people who are deeply interested in education, psychometrics and contributing to the field of assessments. She specifically plans to look for candidates who demonstrate entrepreneurial quality and are passionate about launching an initiative of their own focused on improving quality of education as well as intrapreneurial candidates looking to build a career within an existing assessment company. To that extent, Vyjayanthi also hopes the program will be a talent pipeline to spur more private organizations conducting assessments. She hopes to recruit students who could take on a Fellowship such that they would be able to cover their own costs. Through these strategies she aims to make diagnostic assessments accessible to people at different levels and adapt it to their contexts.

To support philanthropic funding, Vyjayanthi also sees her institute conducting third party assessments for educational interventions or needs assessments for teachers. Building on these efforts and research, Vyjayanthi will advocate for data based approach to reforming quality of education.

Highly networked with key influencers in the region and internationally, Vyjayanthi has already secured in-principle commitment from major philanthropic donors and buy in from key partners.

Vyjayanthi Sankar was brought in a Tamil household in Madras. Her mother was highly influential force in her life and woman she held as her strongest role model. Vyjayanthi shares it is through her mother that she learned how to persevere follow your dreams and juggle multiple roles whether it be mother, wife, student or working professional.

Vyjayanthi excelled academically at school. In high school, her approachability helped getting her elected as a school leader by her peers. Later, Vyjayanthi went to university to study marine biology. It was there, at the Centre for Advanced Study that she saw that India was importing an expensive weed and technology for extraction of carrageenan from marine algae. She not only found a local weed, but also invented a simple, low cost technology for its extraction that she patented. While she took steps towards launching a company to commercialize the idea, conflicting pressures from investors and family on her marital status prevented her from doing so. So, she joined M.Ct.M Chidambaram Chettiyar school, Chennai to set up the Department of Biology, Pure Botany and Pure Zoology for higher secondary education.

Following marriage she kept finding herself moving different cities based on her husband’s job. Despite these limitations, Vyjayanthi always found an opportunity to challenge herself and excel in any field she went into. For example, in Hyderabad, she taught Molecular Genetics at University Level and soon evolved to become the best-known faculty in the emerging field in India. Later when she moved to Baroda that lacked an academic environment, she learnt software and coding and quickly moved up to play a strong leadership role in a company.

She seized the opportunity to join Educational Initiatives (EI), one of India’s first start up’s focusing on assessments. As one of the early members of the team, she played a critical role in shaping and leading its business in India and in the region. She conceptualized and designed the purpose and method of assessments and also strategic partnerships (including with Harvard University, World Bank, UNICEF, Google, Michael Susan and Dell foundation) to scale EI’s work.

At EI, she built the division of large scale assessments from scratch and made it a profitable and strategic business division for EI and positioned the company as South Asia’s Leading Assessment Experts. For instance, Vyjayanthi led the development of 'Student Learning Study, 2010 carried out across 19 states of India. Handling difficult relationships with multiple state and local governments, she orchestrated a team over 1000 people to conduct assessments in different languages and contexts, to conduct the largest education study of its kind in the world with a methodologically rigorous testing cycle. Although she did not have initial buy in from the national government, it was at the end commended and released - a study commended by 12th, 13th and 14th Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan – Joint Review Mission, Govt. of India.

Vyjayanthi has also been a global pioneer in shifting assessments from acting as judgment on a student, school or country to one that can provide actionable insights to different stakeholders. She was quick to recognize that the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) and Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) that only declare the state of learning or rank of a country globally demotivates poorly performing countries from wanting to participate again. It failed to show the teacher, school or government where the gaps are and what they can do to improve.

To translate insights from the study to actionable outcomes, she not only openly shared questions for the first time but also conducted several workshops and capacity building exercises to help education officers and schools understand how each question is developed. She also worked closely with the Bhutan government to put in place technology and methodologies of assessments as a part of their educational system nationally. She has led more than 90 large projects across rural and urban that provided assessments and learning solutions for educators.

As Vyjayanthi built and scaled this division, she began to recognize the power of assessment to ultimately influence how the teaching-learning process takes place. However, she also saw that one company alone couldn’t bring the transformation in India. She recognized that the highly proprietary capacity, external to the educational system makes it expensive for schools to access. Further, she saw that assessments by private entities don’t find as much legitimacy and credibility with the State, which run significant majority of schools and institutions in India. To address this problem at scale, she realized that she had to build capacities that would make the powerful way of conducting assessments more accessible. So, she decided to step down of EI and launch her own organization