'Set up continental exams body'

Page 28
21-08-08

THE immediate past Vice- Chancellor of the University of Education, Winneba, Prof Jophus Anamuah-Mensah, has called on African governments to start up plans to set up a continental examination body to carry out assessment in disciplines such as science, mathematics and languages.
“The assessment should be comprehensive and should cover the context of education in the participating countries. This body should be well equipped with the best available measurement experts, IT experts and data analysts,” he said, adding that the body should also provide comparative data on the various education systems.
Prof Anamuah-Mensah who made the call at the opening of the 26th annual conference of the Association for Educational Assessment in Africa (AEAA) in Accra , also called on teachers and examination bodies in Africa to diversify their modes of assessments “to enable students to apply their knowledge and skills in a scholastic as well as out-of-school context”.
The week-long conference which is being hosted by the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) is being attended by representatives from 18 countries.
It is on the theme: “Contemporary Trends and Tools in Educational Assessment”.
The AEAA is an umbrella organisation of educational assessment and examining bodies in Africa that meets annually to review current trends in educational assessment.
Prof Anamuah-Mensah indicated that assessment had a powerful role to play in the new educational reforms that were sweeping across the continent, and that an effective assessment process could help achieve the stated outcomes of education by directing policy decisions.
“Examining bodies could play a major role in ensuring that education meets national needs and aspirations through the type of assessment models that are perpetuated. The nature of the assessment models could influence classroom instruction,” he stated.
He noted that although the practice of incorporating teachers’ assessment records into public examinations was laudable, a lot needed to be done to reduce the biases to ensure that teachers submitted valid and reliable records.
Prof Anamuah-Mensah said teachers lacked the competence of assessment and the interpretation of assessment results needed to be reviewed, and that “an on-going school-based in service training on test construction, especially, higher-order test items, and interpretation of results should be instituted in the different countries”.
He stressed the need for a greater collaboration among public examination bodies in Africa to share experiences in various aspects of assessment including electronic assessment, continuous assessment, issues of equity and relevance.
Prof Anamuah-Mensah said examination bodies should strengthen their research wings to enable them to conduct studies that would help transform the assessment practices in schools.
In address read on his behalf, the Minister of Education, Science and Sports, Prof Dominic Fobih, underscored the importance of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) to the education sector.
He expressed the hope that the deliberations would bring out more ways through which ICT could be incorporated by the various examination bodies.
He told the participants that ICT was one of the key areas of study under the country’s educational reform which took off in September last year.
The Vice President of AEAA and Head of National Office of WAEC, Mrs Patience Ayesu, said the Council was making great strides in the application of ICT in the administration of public examinations.
Some of the areas where the Council had applied ICT, she said, included online registration of candidates, online checking of results, online verification of results and administration of Internet based tests among others.
The president of AEAA, Mr John Rutayisire, called on the various countries to collaborate through networking to improve their examination systems.