Understanding Learning Skills.
Enabling Better Decisions.
NLSI measures cognitive and motor Learning Skills in children aged 3–10. It helps schools identify strengths, understand gaps and compare their profile with national benchmarks.
- Nursery to Grade 5
- 8 Learning Skills
- Confidential School Report
Questions Every School Leader Wants Answered
The Learning Skills Benchmark Report helps school leaders answer the questions that matter most.
Which Learning Skill is our school’s greatest developmental challenge?
Why do some divisions outperform others within the same grade?
Which grade demonstrates the greatest developmental need?
What evidence justifies where we invest our developmental resources?
Are developmental gaps emerging before academic performance begins to decline?
Which Learning Skills should be our priority over the next academic year?
How do we objectively explain a child’s developmental profile to parents?
How does our school’s Learning Skills profile compare with national benchmarks?
What is the National Learning Skills Index?
The NLSI is a nationwide initiative to benchmark the Learning Skills of children aged 3–10 years (Nursery to Grade 5). It gives schools objective insight into student development and lets them confidentially compare their developmental profile with national benchmarks — while contributing to India’s national learning benchmark.
learning foundation
for India
Four Cognitive. Four Motor.
Learning Skills are the underlying cognitive and motor abilities that shape learning, classroom participation and overall development.
Cognitive Skills
4 SkillsMotor Skills
4 SkillsWhy Learning Skills Matter
Understanding Learning Skills provides schools with deeper insight into how children learn, helping identify priorities and make informed educational decisions.
Foundational cognitive and motor abilities that shape how children learn and participate.
Stronger Learning Skills build readiness for classroom learning and future challenges.
Children who are ready to learn are better able to achieve and grow with confidence.
Learning Skills explain HOW a child learns.
Why these eight Learning Skills?
The NLSI framework was developed around four guiding principles. Each Learning Skill is:
Supports successful learning and classroom participation.
Important during the early years of schooling.
Assessed using standardised, performance-based activities.
Designed to minimise language demands across diverse learners.
Inside the Learning Skills Benchmark Report
Every participating school receives a comprehensive report with objective insights, national benchmarking and actionable findings. Select any page to view it in detail.
All report pages are a representative composite — built from the real distribution of participating schools, not any individual school.
How NLSI Works
From assessment to insight in four simple steps.
Your school registers and we schedule participation together, including faculty orientation.
Trained faculty assess all eight Learning Skills using standardised, child-friendly activities.
Results are validity-checked and analysed against grade-wise national norms.
Your school receives its confidential report, national comparison and recommendations.
The Science Behind NLSI
The National Learning Skills Index combines objective assessment, standardised methodology and established scientific principles to provide schools with reliable and meaningful insights into children’s Learning Skills.
Research-Informed Framework
The eight Learning Skills measured by NLSI are drawn from established research in child development, cognitive science, motor development and educational psychology.
Performance-Based Assessment
Learning Skills are measured through carefully designed activities that objectively assess children’s performance.
Standardised Methodology
Every participating school follows the same assessment, scoring and reporting process, ensuring consistency and enabling meaningful comparisons across schools.
Psychometric Rigour
The NLSI framework is built on globally established psychometric principles to ensure reliable, valid and consistent measurement.
National Benchmarking
School results are interpreted against national benchmark data, providing meaningful context beyond individual scores and enabling confidential comparison.
Objective Reporting
Every participating school receives a comprehensive Learning Skills Benchmark Report that presents objective findings, national comparisons and actionable insights for school leaders.
Built on principles. Driven by purpose.
NLSI is guided by six core principles that ensure fairness, reliability and meaningful insights for every child and every school.
Your school’s data and report are shared only with your school. National benchmarks use aggregated, anonymised data — no individual school can be identified.
Short, play-like, age-appropriate activities. No pass or fail, and no labels placed on any child.
Validity checks on every record, grade-wise norms, and transparent methodology notes included in every report.
Non-verbal assessment activities so children from any linguistic background are measured on the same footing.
The same protocols, scoring and reporting in every participating school — the only way a national comparison means anything.
Every report ends in a leadership conversation about what to do next — not just a set of numbers.
The National Learning Skills Institute
The Institute is the body behind the Index. Its mission is to make the foundations of learning — the cognitive and motor skills children learn with — visible, measurable and improvable at national scale. The Institute develops the assessment methodology, maintains the national norms, safeguards data confidentiality, and works with school leaders to turn benchmark insight into developmental action.
Become a Participating School
Register your school for the National Learning Skills Index. Places in each assessment cycle are limited; eligible schools are contacted with participation details, timelines and next steps.
Every participating school receives
- Learning Skills Assessment Kit
- Faculty Orientation Workshop
- Learning Skills Assessments
- Learning Skills Benchmark Report
- National Benchmark Comparison
- Executive Observations & Recommendations
Prefer to talk? Call us directly — we respond to every school enquiry.
Register your school
We will be in touch with participation details and timelines.