Fourth SADC Annual Assessment in Education Conference, University of
Johannesburg
26 June 2006
THE QUALITY OF ASSESSMENT CAN BE IMPROVED AT LITTLE COST
Dr Lolwana
The SADC Education Ministers meeting that we held in Botswana last year
strongly affirmed the need for our region to liaise and collaborate with
renewed vigour. This conference acts on that commitment.
Assessment is an important part of the process of education. In the past 20
years it has been strengthened by increased research attention to learning and
the emergence of a business influenced performance assessment culture.
In all our systems assessment if well done plays an important role in
telling us about the success of teaching and learning in our schools, colleges
and universities.
The conference programme suggests the emergence of a well informed
professional consideration of issues that influence assessment and outcomes.
The conference has impressive themes and contributors who will play a central
role in shaping regional frameworks for future collaboration.
The conference theme which focuses on assessment standards draws attention
to a fundamental issue that all countries grapple with on an ongoing basis. All
of our systems seek to design definitive reliable tools and approaches.
All the countries gathered here probably go through the annual experience of
recording school leaving outcomes, university success rates and college
statistics of success. Few have the wild South African fetish of the annual
matric exam process. Each December, for a week or so, the country is gripped by
school leaving results analysis. Commentators emerge and the public carries out
an almost ritualistic annual scrutiny of education.
Many of us often feel that it is sad that we have reduced education to the
outcome of a single examination. There are many reasons for such intense
attention to matriculation and it is difficult to deny parents and
educationists their review of the sector. While the probing is sometimes
worrisome in the absence of well designed scrutiny criteria, it has strongly
influenced increased attention to improving the quality of assessment in South
Africa.
The Department has had to devote serious attention to the development of
assessment. This challenge has been assisted over the years by the work of the
International Association for Educational Assessment (IAEA) and development
agencies such as World Bank and United Nations Educational Scientific and
Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) which have invested considerable resources in
conferences, training workshops, consultancies and publications relating to
quality assessment.
One of the key lessons for South Africa has been that any effort at
understanding this area of work requires thoughtful, deliberate and focused
attention to the central issues. If the intention of gathering together is to
strengthen our work, the planners will have to formulate clear outcomes and
strategic priorities.
Quality assessment allows all candidates due credit for their efforts,
facilitates the clear evaluation of the effectiveness of teaching and
encourages learners to be consistent in evaluating their own work.
Capricious assessment fails to give candidates due credit for their efforts,
makes it difficult to evaluate the effectiveness of teaching and makes it
difficult for learners to be consistent in evaluating their own work.
Current practices within the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC)
region and arguably the entire continent, in respect of reports of learner
scores, do not contribute to informing teachers and students of gaps in
knowledge.
What we lack is information on the progress made by students over several
years. We have too many snapshots of learner performance at particular points
in time, rather than as a cumulative progression through school. We use
different tests at different stages of learning without asking how the scores
on each test relate to the overall continuum of achievement in that
subject.
The design of sound assessments, the development of improved assessment
skills and methods of describing progress are essential requirements for
developing any education system.
Examinations and assessments need to have curriculum relevance, be practical
and fair and provide useful information for further learning.
This must be the central theme for debates in performance evaluations.
The quality of assessments within our region can be improved considerably at
little cost. We need to ask:
* Do the assessment tasks chosen for a test represent the relevant content
knowledge?
* How does the form of assessment link to teaching approaches and to
expected outcomes?
* Does this assessment provide valid evidence of improved performance that
allows us to infer that learning has occurred?
Assessment must communicate relevant information to teachers, assisting them
to evaluate what they have added to pupil knowledge through the teaching and
learning process.
Assessment should document the level of achievement prior to a particular
stage of learning and a later assessment should document changes in
achievement.
Our experience has shown that our expectations and the tools we use are
divorced from the learning context and from teachers understanding of
assessment.
We have learned that we should not assume that a well formulated curriculum
is able to deliver quality learning or quality assessment.
Nevertheless, performance standards are necessary to ensure that pupils are
assessed in a fair, reliable and valid manner.
On a number of occasions this year we have had to assure teachers that the
assessment standards we develop will be user friendly, will support teachers,
and not be an administrative burden.
Our experience has also shown that if we are to move toward a system that
produces high learning outcomes, we should be able to clearly indicate our
expectations in well formulated guideline documents. Assessment therefore is
not merely outcomes; it also has to address teaching.
It is our intention to sustain and strengthen the success we have achieved
in building a credible, independent body to support and guide our efforts. The
professional expertise that has been reached through Umalusi has decisively
shaped our system. We should use the opportunity of this conference to
strengthen all our assessment organisations for the best.
In closing, New Partnerships for Africaâs Development (NEPAD) stresses the
importance of what Africa is able to do to improve its position in the global
market. During your interaction and debate, it is important to reflect on
international practices and how we can learn from the experiences of other
leading countries. Although we need to keep pace with international
developments and the challenges of globalisation, our unique situations and
geographical contexts of diversity and poverty must force us to be innovative
and adaptable.
The publicâs demand for raising the educational achievement of all learnersâ
calls for a more comprehensive education system that holds schools, teachers
and learners responsible for learning.
I wish you a challenging and successful conference.
Thanks.
Issued by: Ministry of Education
26 June 2006
