Teachers are considered to be the most important resources responsible for the quality of the education system. They play multiple roles to discharge their responsibilities. These include- designing and preparing lessons, facilitating learning of all students, creating a conducive learning environment, linking with the community, contributing to school development, and at the same time remaining engaged with their own professional development activities. Mostly, teachers are highly skilled, motivated and well resourced to perform to the best of their abilities. However, provision of need based support to the teachers has been enhancing the quality of education.

Since independence, many commissions and committees on education have been highlighting the need for teachers’ appraisal. National Policy on Education (NPE) 1986 highlights that a data- based open, transparent and participatory system of teachers’ appraisal should be evolved. This recommendation of NPE 1986 intends to consider teachers’ appraisal as an instrument of their professional development and not as a mere administrative tool. National Focus Group on Teacher Education for Curriculum Renewal (2006) highlights that “Teachers need to recognize themselves as professionals endowed with the necessary knowledge, attitudes, competence, commitment, capability of reflection, and be sensitive and perceptive to not only the learners and institution but also the emergent concerns in the larger social perspectives within which one functions.” The document highlights the importance of reflection on one’s teaching activities for becoming more humane and professional in the field of teaching. National Knowledge Commission (2006-09) paid attention to evaluating teachers’ performance, which is to be supplemented with adequate feedback. This will enable the teacher to know his/her strengths and deficiencies. The National Curriculum Framework for Teacher Education, 2009 (NCFTE, 2009) discusses the need for improved evaluation of teachers, particularly emphasising the continuous assessment of pre-service teacher -trainees using qualitative and quantitative measures. The Justice Verma Commission Report (2013) also underlines the need to evolve standards and norms for evaluating the performance of teachers.

In many countries, teachers are being assessed by superior school leaders/administrators (i.e. head teachers/principals) or regional supervisors/superintendents. In countries such as the United Kingdom (UK), there is an institutional mechanism for school inspection. The Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills (OFSTED), a non-ministerial government department, is responsible for inspection of teaching practices in schools. Around 1990s, teachers’ self assessment strategies and/or assessment by peers were promoted instead of assessment by superiors. The data and feedback from the self assessment were generally used during professional development programmes for the improvement of individual instructional practices. These approaches strengthened the collective capacity and professional accountability of teachers through self assessment and peer-assisted learning cycles. The report of Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), 2005 mentions that in countries like Chile, England and Portugal, teachers play an active role in their performance evaluation including taking feedback from various stakeholders.

Teacher assessment practices in India are mostly based on external assessment. The usual practices are – Writing of Annual Confidential/Performance Reports of teachers by the personnel at a supervisory level, lesson observation and feedback by supervisor/principal during school inspections. This system is followed in both government as well as private schools. In 2007, United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) in collaboration with Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) had developed a tool, namely, Advancement of Educational Performance Standard (ADEPTS) for appraising the performance of teachers and Resource persons under SSA.

In 2013, NCERT had developed a guideline along with a tool for assessing the performance of teachers at the elementary level, called PINDICS. The guideline is based on the provisions stated in sections 24, 29 and the schedule specifying norms and standards for schools in the RTE Act 2009, NCF-2005 and SSA Framework-2011. PINDICS can be used for self assessment as well as for external assessment. The online and mobile application of PINDICS are also available. This tool is basically a 4 point rating scale consists of 54 performance indicators covered under 7 broad performance standards. Teachers from 20 states/UTs have been using PINDICS.

PINDICS, being a tool for assessing the performance of elementary school teachers, there is a need to come up with a tool, which will help teachers from all levels of school education. In this context, NCERT has developed a guideline and tool for the self assessment of teachers’ performance titled Teacher Self Assessment Rubrics (TSAR). This tool can be used by any teacher working at primary to higher secondary level. It can be used by teachers for assessing their own performance based on their expected roles and responsibilities. This will help them identify their areas of strength and challenges when they perform their duties as a teacher and facilitate them to enrich the teaching- learning process.

One of the important roles of a teacher is to facilitate students’ learning and provide support to them in the realization of learning outcomes. As a teacher, many-a-times he/she might get puzzled by the fact that, in spite of putting in the best effort, the students are not performing to the best of their potential. Self-reflection and introspection of teacher’s practices inside and outside the classroom will help one to understand some of the aspects that require further modification and improvement. The teacher may be already practicing some of the innovative pedagogical approaches in the classroom that might be very effective for enriching the teaching-learning process. This document will provide the teacher with an opportunity to showcase his/her innovative work and performance. The most important thing is that, this tool being Rubrics, will give an idea about what are the expected roles and responsibilities of a teacher in facilitating students’ learning. This, in turn, will help the teacher to identify the weak as well as strong areas of his/her performance.