A few years from now, a parent–teacher meeting in a typical Indian school might look very different.
Instead of a thin paper report card with a few subject marks and a one-line remark, a parent sits down with a teacher in front of a shared screen. Together, they scroll through a digital profile that shows the child’s journey over the years: how reading fluency has grown, how often they helped classmates, where they struggled with self-confidence, what projects lit up their curiosity, how they handled setbacks, and how all of this is evolving over time.
On the side of the screen, an AI assistant quietly highlights patterns: “Mathematics problem-solving has improved sharply this term when activities are project-based”; “Peer feedback repeatedly mentions leadership in group tasks”; “Sleep and mood logs suggest dips before exams.” It has pulled these insights from classroom observations, project rubrics, self and peer assessments, and even short reflections the child recorded in their own words.
That is the world Holistic Progress Cards (HPCs), powered by AI and envisioned in NEP 2020, are nudging Indian schools towards.
This article explores how that shift from marksheets to multidimensional, AI-augmented progress cards can redefine what “success” means in Indian education and why it could ultimately shape employment and life chances in far more equitable ways than the current system ever has.
For decades, Indian report cards have answered a narrow question: “How did this student perform in a few exams this year?” They do this reasonably well, but they fail on three fronts that matter deeply for the 21st century:
NEP 2020 is explicit about this limitation. It calls for a move away from high-stakes, rote-driven exams and “traditional knowledge acquisition” towards competency-based education and assessment, and explicitly proposes a holistic, 360-degree progress card that reflects “the progress and the uniqueness of each learner in the cognitive, affective and psychomotor domains.”
This is not just semantic tinkering. It is a different philosophy of success.
Instead of asking, “How many marks did you get?” the system begins to ask:
Holistic Progress Cards, as developed by PARAKH under NCERT for all four stages of schooling, are the concrete instruments designed to make that philosophy visible.
PARAKH describes the Holistic Progress Card as an integrative, comprehensive document of a learner’s progress “captured across several curricular elements based on their performance on competency-based and multidisciplinary activities.” It is being developed for all stages of school education under the NEP 2020 5+3+3+4 structure.
At its core, the HPC does three things differently from a traditional report card.
1. It is 360-degree and multi-source
The HPC intentionally brings together perspectives from:
In practice, this looks like:
The result is not a single teacher’s verdict, but a shared mirror that many people help hold up to the learner.
2. It spans multiple domains, not just academics
NEP 2020 emphasises holistic development cognitive, emotional, social, ethical, and physical. The HPC operationalises this by tracking competencies across domains such as:
PARAKH’s HPC prototypes even define cross-cutting abilities like Awareness, Sensitivity, and Creativity, and use simple metaphors (such as “Stream–Mountain–Sky”) to indicate levels from beginner to advanced across these abilities. This is a more human way of saying: how clearly do you understand, how deeply do you care, and how imaginatively can you respond?
3. It is evidence-based and narrative, not just numeric
The HPC draws on:
CBSE’s implementation guide is very clear: at the foundational stage, explicit tests and exams are “inappropriate”; assessment should largely be qualitative observations and documented evidence, compiled into a descriptive HPC rather than grades or scores.
Instead of “Maths: 72%”, a teacher might write:
“Understands number concepts well when working with real objects; needs support to explain strategies verbally, but shows increasing confidence in group tasks.”
In the higher grades, the secondary-stage HPC templates include sophisticated sections on time management, life skills, future plans (“Future Self – 10 years from now”), and an “Accomplishments Inventory” that tracks preparation for exams, portfolios, and civic contributions.
Taken together, the HPC is less a marksheet and more a living portfolio of a student’s journey.
So far, this description could, in theory, be implemented entirely on paper. Many schools and boards are already experimenting with 360-degree HPCs without much technology, as seen in states like Himachal Pradesh and West Bengal.
However, both NEP 2020 and subsequent assessment reform documents go a step further. They explicitly encourage the use of AI and IT-based tracking of student progress from primary to senior secondary levels, and mention AI-based software to help students identify strengths, plan careers, and receive personalised support.
Some key trends are converging here:
When these streams converge, AI can become the quiet engine that turns HPCs into living, learning systems:
In other words, AI does not create the idea of holistic progress. NEP 2020 and HPC do that. AI simply gives the system eyes and ears sharp enough to see holistic progress in real time, at scale.
To understand what this can look like on the ground, consider a composite picture drawn from conversations with principals and teachers in early HPC-adopting schools, along with case examples from states piloting 360-degree progress cards.
A secondary school principal in a hill district logs into the school’s assessment portal. Instead of a list of marks, the home screen shows:
Behind this is a data model built from the state’s 360-degree progress card initiative, similar to Himachal Pradesh’s work on holistic cards that capture academic, sports, cultural, and social participation for every student from nursery to Class 12. The HPC has become a school improvement tool, not just a student file.
In a middle school classroom, a science teacher is planning the term-end reflections. Over the term, she has:
Alone, this would be overwhelming to synthesise. Here is where AI becomes indispensable.
An AI assistant trained on the HPC structure processes:
It then suggests:
The teacher remains in control: editing, adding nuance, correcting misinterpretations. But the blank page is gone. The administrative burden drops. More energy is available for the part of assessment that only humans can do: judgment, empathy, conversation.
A Class 9 student opens their own dashboard. They see:
An AI-based guidance module, aligned with NEP’s vision of AI-assisted career planning, suggests:
The student is not locked into these suggestions, and the system must be carefully governed to avoid bias. But for many first-generation learners, this is the first time any institution has systematically reflected back their whole selves, not just their exam ranks.
Several developments across India show that this is not a distant utopia but a direction already being taken.
1. PARAKH’s national HPC framework
PARAKH has developed HPC prototypes for all four stages: foundational, preparatory, middle, and secondary and reports active dissemination to states and districts as part of NEP implementation. Each stage has:
Teacher participation numbers in hands-on HPC exercises hundreds of teachers at each stage suggest that capacity-building has begun in earnest.
2. State-level 360-degree progress cards
States are starting to operationalise this vision in their own contexts:
In both cases, the state platforms are, in effect, early HPC engines. As they mature, AI layers can be added to:
3. NCERT and CBSE guidance on HPC implementation
CBSE has adapted the NCERT/PARAKH foundational HPC prototype into a detailed teacher implementation guide. This document:
In parallel, national commentaries and explainer pieces highlight how HPCs are intended to shift India from a marks-obsessed culture to one where “academic, social, emotional, physical and creative growth” are all recognised as integral to success.
These early moves show a system inching from examination sheets to growth maps.
At first glance, HPCs might look like a purely school-internal reform. In reality, they have long-term implications for employment and the labour market.
1. From marks to competencies
Employers in India increasingly complain that graduates of school or college lack transferable skills such as critical thinking, communication, collaboration, and self-management, despite decent marks. Traditional report cards offer no reliable signals on these fronts.
HPCs, especially when AI-enabled and longitudinal, can:
This aligns with global shifts towards competency-based hiring and admissions, and with NEP’s own emphasis on life skills and holistic development as foundational to citizenship and employability.
2. Reducing information asymmetry for first-generation learners
In the current system, students from more advantaged backgrounds can supplement marksheets with:
Students from less privileged backgrounds often cannot. HPCs, if implemented equitably, can partially level this field by:
AI can help by making these portfolios searchable and analysable at scale while strict guardrails protect against misuse and bias.
3. Informing career guidance and self-awareness
Secondary-stage HPC templates already include sections on goals, time management, life skills, and future plans. NEP commentary notes that AI-based software can support students in understanding their strengths and areas of focus for informed career choices.
An AI-augmented HPC could, for example:
This is especially important in India, where many young people make career decisions based on limited information and social pressure rather than nuanced self-knowledge.
Technology amplifies whatever design it is given. The same AI that can help teachers see the “whole child” can also become a tool for surveillance or labelling if used uncritically.
Several principles, grounded both in research and in early practice, can help keep HPCs on the right side of history.
1. Human first, AI second
NEP 2020 and PARAKH are clear that assessment exists to support learning, not to sort and punish. AI must therefore:
Examples of “human first” design include:
2. Privacy, consent, and data minimisation
Holistic, longitudinal data is powerful and deeply sensitive. Emotional states, behavioural trends, disciplinary incidents, and informal comments, all recorded and centralised, can be misused.
Robust governance is non-negotiable:
Without this, HPC data could entrench stigma or gatekeeper opportunities instead of expanding them.
3. Transparent and explainable AI
If AI models are being used to flag at-risk students or suggest interventions, their workings must be:
This is particularly critical in India, where structural inequities mean that data often reflects social bias. AI must not be allowed to launder such bias as “objective insight.”
4. Joy and agency at the centre
Earlier articles in this series have returned again and again to the theme of joyful, design-rich learning that honours curiosity, choice, storytelling, and real-life relevance.
HPCs and AI can either support that or quietly undermine it.
Supportive design looks like:
In other words, the system should ask, “How are you growing?” more often than, “How do you rank?”
Many school leaders and policymakers rightly ask: “All of this sounds good, but can a typical Indian school afford it in time, money, and capacity?”
1. The real costs
Implementing HPCs, even without AI, requires:
Adding AI introduces further costs:
At first glance, this can appear daunting, especially for government or low-fee schools.
2. The hidden savings and returns
However, several factors tilt the cost–benefit equation in favour of thoughtful adoption:
Studies of AI-driven assessment and adaptive learning in Indian contexts already show how technology, when well-designed, can deliver large learning gains at relatively low marginal cost per student once infrastructure is in place.
In that light, the question becomes: What is the cost of not doing this? A system that continues to lose talent to exam anxiety, narrow definitions of merit, and invisible barriers may be far more expensive for individuals and for the economy than the investments required to build AI-augmented HPCs.
Because this article sits in a broader Knowledge Garden series on curriculum lag, AI as an equaliser, personalised pathways, and assessment backbones like Item Response Theory it is useful to translate the vision of AI-powered HPCs into concrete next steps for different actors.
Protect time for reflection
Schedule termly “HPC conferences” where teachers, students, and parents look at the whole picture together. This is where data becomes meaningful.
Engage critically with AI suggestions
Treat AI-generated summaries as draft hypotheses about your students, not facts. Confirm, nuance, or challenge them based on your lived relationship with the class.
Embed strong data governance in policy
Develop standards and regulations for privacy, consent, and AI use in assessment, with enforceable consequences for misuse. Involve child rights experts and marginalised communities in this process.
Earlier articles in this series have traced several arcs:
Holistic Progress Cards are where many of these threads become visible to students and families. They are the face of deeper changes in curriculum, pedagogy, and measurement.
HPCs, especially when thoughtfully powered by AI, can be that translation layer.
They tell a child:
“You are not your percentage.
You are a learner in motion with strengths, struggles, and possibilities that deserve to be seen, understood, and supported from all sides.”
They tell a teacher:
“Your observations, your judgment, and your care matter as much as the test scores.
Here is a structure that honours that.”
They tell a parent:
“Your child’s success is bigger than any one exam.
Let’s look at who they are becoming.”
And they tell the system:
“If the goal is holistic, equitable, joyful education, then the way success is recorded and read must change accordingly.”
Imagine a student holding their Holistic Progress Card at the end of Class 10 not as a sheet of fear, but as a mirror, a window, and a map.
AI does not replace human meaning-making. It helps weave together the countless strands of evidence into something legible and timely, especially in a system as large and complex as India’s.
If curriculum reform asks, “What should children learn?” and AI-enabled personalisation asks, “How can each child learn in their own way?”, then AI-powered Holistic Progress Cards ask a question that may be even more transformative:
“How can we honour everything that counts as learning and make that recognition itself a source of joy, equity, and opportunity?”
For Indian education, that question is not a technical detail. It is a quiet revolution.
Holistic Progress Cards Powered by AI: Redefining How Indian Schools Evaluate Success