Gunotsav (Assam School Quality Assessment)

What is Gunotsav in Assam?

Gunotsav is the Government of Assam's statewide school quality assessment programme, run by the Education Department through the Directorate of Elementary Education and Samagra Shiksha Axom. The name translates roughly as "celebrating quality", and the model was adapted from a similar exercise first run in Gujarat in 2009.

Gunotsav was launched in Assam with its first phase from 4 to 7 April 2017, covering eight districts: Barpeta, Chirang, Dibrugarh, Hailakandi, Kamrup Metro, Lakhimpur, Morigaon and West Karbi Anglong. According to the Directorate of Elementary Education, the purpose is to "track the performance of every child at elementary level, assess their individual learning gap and devise remedial measures". It is described on the same portal as an accountability framework covering learning outcomes, co-scholastic activities and the use of resources.

Gunotsav is not a scholarship, a stipend or a cash transfer. It is a monitoring and improvement exercise, and its outputs are a school grade, a school-level report card and a follow-up remedial plan. Readers searching for "Gunotsav Assam result" are usually looking for the grade of a particular school, which is published by Samagra Shiksha Axom after each cycle.

Which department runs Gunotsav?

Gunotsav is owned by the Education Department, Government of Assam. Day-to-day implementation sits with the Directorate of Elementary Education for elementary schools and Samagra Shiksha Axom (the state's Samagra Shiksha mission) for logistics, question papers, OMR processing and result publication. The Directorate of Secondary Education is involved for the secondary classes.

An Apex Committee governs the programme. According to the Directorate of Elementary Education, the committee is chaired by the state Education Minister and includes senior officers from the Finance, Planning, Personnel and Education departments along with the Mission Director of the state's Samagra Shiksha mission. At district level the Deputy Commissioner and the District Elementary Education Officer run the assessment, allot evaluators to schools and compile results.

Who is covered by Gunotsav, and who is not eligible?

Covered automatically:

• All government elementary schools in Assam, including lower primary and upper primary schools.
• Provincialised schools whose teachers are paid by the state government.
• Government secondary schools, since the extension of Gunotsav beyond the elementary stage.
• Every enrolled child of the assessed classes in those schools, starting from Classes II to VIII at the elementary stage.

Not covered / not eligible:

• Private unaided schools, which are outside the Gunotsav grading cycle and cannot apply to be included.
• Individual students, parents and teachers cannot apply for Gunotsav as a personal benefit. There is no money, no certificate of entitlement and no individual award attached to the exercise.
• Schools cannot opt out. Participation is a departmental instruction, not a voluntary registration.

This is the single most common misunderstanding about Gunotsav. It is a government process applied to schools, not a welfare scheme that a family registers for.

How is a Gunotsav grade calculated?

Gunotsav scores a school on four components:

1. Scholastic performance, the learning outcomes of students, tested in language, mathematics, environmental studies and science depending on the class. This is the dominant component of the score.
2. Co-scholastic activities; sports, cultural activity, cleanliness and student participation beyond the textbook.
3. Community participation; School Management Committee functioning, parent involvement, and local contribution to the school.
4. Infrastructure and resource use: whether classrooms, toilets, drinking water, library books and teaching-learning material actually reach children.

The tests for Classes II to VIII are conducted in the medium of instruction, including Assamese, Bodo, Bengali, Hindi and English, so that a child is not penalised for the language of the paper. Answer sheets are OMR-based, which is what allows the state to process lakhs of scripts and publish grades within weeks.

Final grades are on a five-tier scale; A+, A, B, C and D. Samagra Shiksha Axom places the A+ band at approximately 86.5 per cent and above. In the 2025 cycle, media reporting of the published results recorded more than 27,000 schools in the combined A and A+ bands, of which 11,594 schools were placed in the A grade.

How is Gunotsav conducted, step by step?

1. District allotment and evaluator training. The district administration maps every school to an external evaluator and holds an orientation on the assessment format and OMR handling.
2. Self-evaluation day. Each school first assesses its own children and fills in its own school profile. In 2025 this fell on 6 January for Phase I, 17 January for Phase II and 4 February for Phase III.
3. External evaluation days. The allotted external evaluator spends a full school day at the school, conducts the tests, checks records and completes the school format. In 2025 these ran 7 to 9 January, 20 to 22 January and 5 to 7 February for the three phases.
4. OMR scanning and grading. Answer sheets go to the district for scanning, and scores are consolidated into the four-component grade.
5. Publication of grades and school report cards. Results are released by Samagra Shiksha Axom and shared down to school level.
6. Remedial phase. Schools and children below the expected level are taken up for remedial teaching, and low grades feed into infrastructure and teacher deployment decisions.

How do you check a Gunotsav result?

1. Open the Samagra Shiksha Axom Gunotsav page at ssa.assam.gov.in/resource/gunotsav.
2. Open the result or report-card link published for the relevant cycle year.
3. Search by district, block and school, or by the school's UDISE code, which is the most reliable identifier.
4. If the school does not appear, ask the Block Elementary Education Officer or the District Elementary Education Officer, who hold the district compilation.

Parents can also ask the head teacher directly. Each assessed school receives its own report card showing the component-wise score, and the School Management Committee is expected to discuss it.

Why do schools get a low Gunotsav grade?

• Weak foundational literacy and numeracy in the early classes, which pulls down the scholastic component that carries the most weight.
• Poor attendance on assessment day, since absent children score nothing.
• Records not maintained — missing SMC minutes, grant registers or stock registers cost marks on community participation and resource use.
• Unused infrastructure, such as a library with books never issued or a toilet not functional on the day of assessment.
• Teacher vacancies in single-teacher or two-teacher schools.

The correct response to a low grade is the remedial plan drawn up by the block office, not an appeal. Gunotsav has no individual appeal mechanism because no individual entitlement is decided by it.

Key dates for Gunotsav

• April 2017; first Gunotsav in Assam, eight districts.
• January to February each year. The normal three-phase assessment window.
• 2025 cycle; Phase I self-evaluation 6 January and external evaluation 7 to 9 January; Phase II 17 January and 20 to 22 January; Phase III 4 February and 5 to 7 February.

Exact dates shift each year and are notified by the Education Department and Samagra Shiksha Axom before each cycle.

Where to raise a Gunotsav grievance

Gunotsav grievances. A school left out of the allotment, OMR sheets not received, a disputed score, or an evaluator who did not visit: are raised through the education administration, in this order:

• Head teacher and School Management Committee at school level.
• Block Elementary Education Officer (BEEO) for the block.
• District Elementary Education Officer (DEEO) and the Deputy Commissioner's office, which chairs the district-level exercise.
• Samagra Shiksha Axom, State Mission Office, Kahilipara, Guwahati, for state-level issues on results and report cards.

No fee is payable at any stage of Gunotsav, and no agent or private coaching centre has any role in the assessment or in the publication of grades.