PRASHAST can find a concern. Can the system complete the journey?

What happens the morning after a teacher ticks a box suggesting that a child may have a disability?

That is the practical question behind India’s current PRASHAST rollout. The official timetable moved from teacher sensitisation and school onboarding in July and September 2026 to Part 1 screening in late September, Part 2 screening in early October, intervention camps later in October and outcome reporting by 25 December.^[1]

My proposed view is simple: PRASHAST should be judged as a referral pipeline, not as a completed screening drive. Counting forms or app completions tells us that the first gate opened. It does not tell us whether a child received a fair assessment, a certificate where appropriate, an accommodation, assistive support or better teaching.

The tool is deliberately not a diagnosis

PRASHAST covers the 21 disability conditions recognised under the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016. Its design has two stages. A regular teacher uses Part 1 for preliminary screening across the class. A special educator, counsellor or other designated person then uses Part 2 to validate those observations and narrow the possible conditions before referral.^[2]

The distinction matters. NCERT’s own booklet says the checklist is a preliminary screening tool and must not be used to diagnose or attach needless labels.^[2] It also tells teachers to observe a student for at least two weeks in different contexts, consider the language used at home, keep information confidential and share observations with parents or guardians. Part 2 requires another observation period of at least 15 days, followed by parental consent before referral.^[2]

That is a thoughtful sequence. A child who is quiet in an unfamiliar language, tired because of a health problem or struggling because teaching has moved too quickly should not casually acquire a disability label. At the same time, less visible conditions should not remain unnoticed simply because a child is enrolled and sitting in class.

The app now makes this a national operating process. NCERT’s September 2026 Android listing described PRASHAST as an initial screening and referral mechanism; by early October, the iOS version history said Part 1 access had opened for teachers who completed sensitisation, with current school, teacher and student data synced into the workflow.^[3][4]

The missing metric is conversion

Imagine, purely as an illustration, that 1,000 children are screened. Suppose 80 are shortlisted after Part 1, 40 are validated after Part 2, 28 reach an assessment camp, 20 receive a formal determination and 15 actually obtain the support prescribed.

A dashboard celebrating 1,000 screenings would show 100% completion. A family looking at the same process might see only 15 children reaching support. The illustrative conversion is 15 ÷ 1,000 = 1.5% of children screened, or 15 ÷ 40 = 37.5% of those validated. Neither percentage says whether the screening threshold was right. It only shows why the hand-offs must be measured.

The real dashboard therefore needs a small funnel:

• children screened in Part 1;
• children validated in Part 2;
• referrals made, with parental consent;
• assessments completed;
• certifications or clinical determinations completed where applicable;
• educational supports started;
• follow-up completed after a defined period.

Each number needs a denominator and a time interval. “Twenty thousand referrals” is not informative without the number screened, the number awaiting appointments and the number who reached support.

The strongest challenge

There is a fair counterargument: schools cannot solve shortages of special educators, clinicians, assessment camps or assistive devices. Asking teachers to own the entire pathway could turn inclusion into another compliance burden.

I agree with the first half, but not the conclusion. The answer is not to abandon school-based screening. It is to assign responsibility for every hand-off. The school can own observation, confidentiality, parent communication and classroom adjustments. Block and district systems can own specialist capacity, camp schedules, transport and case closure. States can publish waiting times and conversion rates without exposing children’s identities.

NCERT’s original field work also deserves careful interpretation. In 100 Chandigarh schools, Part 1 listed 3,482 students, Part 2 referred 637, and the booklet reports 95.76% “similarity” between suspected-disability and certification data.^[2] That is not enough information to calculate sensitivity, specificity or a false-positive rate: the booklet does not provide the full comparison table. It is encouraging implementation evidence, not a complete validation study.

What success should look like

By December, the easiest number will be how many schools submitted reports. The harder and more meaningful questions are these: How many flagged children were reviewed by a qualified person? How long did families wait? How many referrals stalled? What support changed inside the classroom? Did families understand that screening was not diagnosis?

PRASHAST can make invisible needs more visible. That is valuable. But visibility without a route to help can leave a family with a new concern and no resolution.

The memorable measure is not the tick. It is the completed journey from observation to support.