SQAAF
SQAAF — the School Quality Assessment & Assurance Framework — became mandatory for every CBSE-affiliated school from academic year 2024-25. Here's the framework in plain English, and exactly how ProofSchool maps to it.
What it is
SQAAF was developed by PARAKH (under NCERT) and CBSE, aligned with NEP 2020. It defines a structured self-assessment that every CBSE school runs annually and uploads to the SARAS portal by 31 December each year.
The framework structures itself around the 4R quality cycle: Review · Reflect · Respond · Rate. The school reviews evidence against criteria, reflects on the gap, responds with concrete improvements, and rates itself on a four-level performance scale (Inceptive → Transient → Stable → Dynamic).
Final accreditation ratings are determined by CBSE-certified Peer Assessor Teams during external assessment — not by the school's self-rating alone, and not by any technology vendor.
The seven domains
The framework spans seven domains, weighted by criticality. ProofSchool addresses three; the other four belong in your SARAS documentation upload.
| Domain | Title | Weight | ProofSchool |
|---|---|---|---|
| Domain 1 | Curriculum, Pedagogy & Assessment Covered — student / peer / self / principal voice + AI-graded lesson plans, assessment papers, reflective practice. | 40% | ✓ |
| Domain 2 | Infrastructure | 10% | — |
| Domain 3 | Human Resources Covered — teacher CPD evidence, reflective practice artifact, growth trajectory across cycles. | 10% | ✓ |
| Domain 4 | Inclusive Practices | 10% | — |
| Domain 5 | Management & Governance | 10% | — |
| Domain 6 | Leadership | 10% | — |
| Domain 7 | Beneficiary Satisfaction Covered — anonymous student + parent feedback at scale, audit-trailed parental consent on every minor record. | 10% | ✓ |
Why these three
Domains 1, 3, and 7 are the SQAAF domains that explicitly require evidence from multiple stakeholders — students, parents, peers, and the teachers themselves — rather than just documentary records. This is the exact gap ProofSchool fills.
The highest-weighted SQAAF domain. ProofSchool's 5-stream framework hits every facet — student experience (Stream 1), peer observation (Stream 2), teacher self-assessment (Stream 3), principal rubric (Stream 4), and AI evaluation of lesson plans, assessment papers, and reflective practice (Stream 5).
SQAAF expects evidence of teacher CPD, structured self-reflection, and growth across cycles. The reflective practice artifact maps directly here — graded by AI on self-awareness, growth orientation, and pedagogical insight, with the teacher's own self-reflection layered on top.
Direct stakeholder voice is the gold standard for this domain. Anonymous, parental-consent-gated student + parent feedback at scale. Tamil and English native; Hindi, Bengali, and Kannada in pilot.
The 4R cycle
01 / 04
Collect evidence against the rubric — student / peer / self / principal voice plus teaching artifacts.
02 / 04
The teacher writes a structured reflection on what the evidence shows. ProofSchool grades the reflection itself.
03 / 04
AI report surfaces strengths + growth areas + a coaching plan. The school responds with concrete next steps.
04 / 04
Composite score maps to one of four SQAAF performance levels — Inceptive, Transient, Stable, or Dynamic.
Important
We provide tooling for school self-assessment under the SQAAF framework — anonymous feedback collection, AI-generated reports, audit-trailed consent. The output is evidence you can upload to SARAS, not an accreditation rating.
Final SQAAF accreditation ratings are determined by CBSE-certified Peer Assessor Teams during external assessment. The disclaimer is printed on every report we generate.