Himachal Pradesh has achieved a remarkable milestone by securing a place among the top 5 states in the PARAKH Rashtriya Sarvekshan 2024—a dramatic ascent from its rank 21 in 2021. In the PARAKH 2024 assessments Himachal Pradesh outperformed the national average across every subject and grade level assessed—with performance variation reaching as high as 12% points. In Class 3, for instance, students scored 76% in language and 72% in mathematics, compared to national averages of 64% and 60% respectively.

Himachal Pradesh’s rise in the national rankings reflects a phase of deep systemic reform—anchored in the use of real-time data, the adoption of technology, and a strong emphasis on teacher training and academic interventions. Rather than return to traditional methods for assessments and remediation, Himachal Pradesh initiated a series of technology-led interventions to identify learning gaps faster and respond with precision.

In 2023-2024, Himachal conducted the State Level Achievement Survey (SLAS), a digital, census-level assessment to identify learning gaps. The insights from SLAS powered a multi-pronged remedial strategy:

• Printing teacher handbooks with targeted strategies and content.
• Introducing a daily ‘Zero Period’ in all schools to support children struggling with foundational skills.
• Sharing weekly competency calendars with teachers for lesson planning aligned to student needs.
• Printing competency-based question banks for students’ in-class practice.
• Building robust governance systems led by 300 Master Trainers to support implementation of remediation plan.

Himachal Pradesh has consistently prioritized digitized assessments and continuous improvement of student learning outcomes. In 2024, multiple OCR-based census level assessments were conducted for students in grades 3, 6, and 9. Teachers simply scanned the OCR-answer sheets through SwiftChat app and the real-time data and insights were reflected on dashboards at the Vidya Samiksha Kendra. With early insights, remedial handbooks were prepared for teachers, personalized printed worksheets were created for students, and weekly practice questions were delivered through the Abhayas Himachal Chatbot on the SwiftChat app.

This shift compressed the feedback loop—from three months to three weeks—ensuring timely support reaches students when they need it most.