Locating the local village within the global village: assessment possibilities and practical challenges

Abstract

The Centre for Evaluation and Assessment (CEA) situated at the Faculty of Education, University of Pretoria in South Africa has been working collaboratively with the Curriculum, Evaluation and Management (CEM) Centre at the University of Durham in the United Kingdom on an assessment project since 2003. The CEM centre has developed a suite of monitoring projects catering for learners from primary school, through to A-levels. The CEA has been researching the feasibility of adapting and implementing two projects, one for the primary school and one for the secondary school, for the South African context. The instruments that were developed by the CEM centre are currently being used as baseline assessments in a number of countries, including Australia, New Zealand, Scotland and Germany. In contrast to these countries, South Africa is a developing country, with vast discrepancies in terms of schooling conditions and resources with the additional challenges of multilingualism in the classroom. These issues complicate the implementation of equitable assessment practices. The tension arises between adequately mapping the instruments in terms of context specific monitoring of achievement within South Africa, while maintaining the integrity of the instrument for the purpose of international comparisons. In this regard issues of validity, reliability, fairness and practicality are highlighted. These issues pertain to the quality of the instruments and the research question addressed is: To what extent can an international monitoring system be adapted for the South African context and implemented effectively. This paper addresses these issues as part of an ongoing research project, funded by the National Research Foundation (NRF).