Backing for change to pupil assessment

Press, 16 May 1989, Page 9

Backing for change to pupil assessment

By

SARONA IOSEFA

The education system needs to get away from assessing achievement by “an academic three-hour test,” says the chairwoman of the Board of Studies, Ms Lynn Scott. “Education is much more than that — it’s life skills and we must identify the importance of parenting, nutrition, and morals as part of it,” she said. Ms Scott said the board fully supported the proposed achievement-based education system, rather than the present aca-demic-based system. “In the past most schools adopted the scal-ing-numbers system whereby they predict, for example, the top 4 per cent will be the top students, the next 11 per cent the average students, and those below are the failures.

“What the new system will do is provide set standards that the entire

class might pass or fail, but it is a set standard which the institution says must be achieved in order to pass,” Ms Scott said. She said it was a much tougher system but it was fair and, if achieved nationally, made curricula more consistent. Achievement-based assessment was being emphasised by a secondary school-leavers project in three Christchurch schools. Christchurch Boys’, Lincoln, and Riccarton high schools were taking part in a national trial where students leaving school were given records of achievement for potential employers. The records of achievement provide employers with a first-hand report on the student’s achievments through their school life in such areas as technical competence, group work, numeracy, and research skills. “The project has been extremely successful, with

most employers responding well, because previously most schools would not release any details of a student’s work other than a referral and marks throughout the year,” said Ms Scott. She said when the National Education Qualifications Authority began its role as validator of all education courses, from School Certificate to adult education, it must also closely assess curricula. As one of the main proposals in the "Learning for Life” report on tertiary education, the authority was an attempt to provide) a national framework to allow “portability” of qualifications. It is hoped it can be set up by October. Ms Scott said the board was most concerned that the qualifications authority not become merely an awards-validating body but that it concern itself with the assessment of curricula leading up to an award.