Building Sustainable Assessment Systems for Improved Learning in Africa
Image: Association for the Development of Education in Africa
Millions of children in Africa are unable to acquire age-appropriate skills in reading and mathematics, especially in their early years. This is known as learning poverty. African educational assessment systems mainly comprise classroom assessments, national examinations, and large-scale assessments. Some large-scale assessments that have been used across the African continent include regional assessments like the Southern and Eastern Africa Consortium for Monitoring Educational Quality (SEACMEQ), Programme d’Analyse des Systèmes Educatifs de la CONFEMEN (PASEC), PAL Network Citizen-led Assessments, and international assessments like the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) and PISA for Development. These large-scale assessments play an important role in tracking progress on key objectives set by governments towards reversing learning poverty.
A recent joint research project by the Association for the Development of Education in Africa (ADEA) and the African Foundational Learning Data Hub (AFLEARN) across multiple African countries, including Ghana, Kenya, Mozambique, Malawi, Rwanda, Somalia, and South Africa, reveals various challenges undermining the successful implementation of national assessments.