Letter to the Education and Skills Committee
from Dr Ken Boston, Chief Executive, Qualifications and Curriculum
Authority (QCA)
The Qualifications and Curriculum Authority
welcomes the opportunity to present this submission to the Select
Committee.
The QCA is the statutory national authority
for testing and assessment in England. It is responsible for development
and delivery of the national curriculum tests, and for provision
of the national results to Government. It regulates the market
for delivery of nationally-accredited general qualifications and
vocational qualifications by awarding bodies. It is responsible
for the maintenance of assessment standards year on year. It is
leading and managing current and projected reforms in the delivery
and modernisation of tests and examinations.
The QCA is thus at the fulcrum of the national
testing and assessment programme. It delivers, promotes and defends
testing and assessment as a means for securing better teaching
and learning, and for measuring and reporting change in educational
outcomes at individual, institutional and national level. This
point is important: the QCA is the guardian of standards, and
its public contributions to the discussion of assessment reform
are entirely from that perspective.
It is also important to acknowledge the strengths
of the current assessment system, and in particular those of the
national curriculum tests. Each national curriculum test is the
product of a developmental process extending over more than two
years, during which the test items and mark schemes are rigorously
pre-tested, trialled and refined, and then pre-tested, trialled
and refined again. The quality of these tests stands comparison
with any similar tests developed internationally. Further, the
techniques developed by the DfES to analyse change in educational
performance at individual, school and local authority level over
time, and to plan and deliver strategic interventions in response,
have now reached a level of sophistication and practical utility
which is world class. Such strengths are the product of well-managed
and steady evolution, which must be the process by which further
development continues to occur.
Assessment is integral to good teaching and
learning: if teachers understand assessment better, performance
will rise. Effective classroom assessment today will improve teaching
and learning tomorrow. Timely and effective assessment, which
measures and supports their learning, should be an entitlement
for all young people. At the same time, the Government must have
the most accurate and best possible measure of educational performance
at school, local authority and national level. The introduction
of the new secondary curriculum provides a timely opportunity
to reflect on the best curriculum assessment arrangements from
2011 onwards.
This submission consists of five papers.
Paper 1, Evaluating assessment systems,
has been prepared to assist the Select Committee to identify and
consider the many complex questions that will arise during the
course of the inquiry. It focuses on the key issues of validity,
reliability and purpose, which will be at the heart of the Select
Committee's deliberations.
Paper 2 is a summary of observations about the
national curriculum testing programme, drawn from systematic and
formal consultation with schools over a long period. As with any
testing system, there is room for further development and extension:
the present arrangements provide a foundation on which this can
occur.
Within the very foreseeable future, it will
be possible for traditional pencil-and-paper assessment largely
to be replaced by on-line and even on-demand testing, should that
be the desired policy direction.
Paper 3, Testing and assessment: the use
of electronic media, describes the current status of these
developments and projected future directions.[1]
Paper 4[2],
which has been published on the QCA website, sets out the regulatory
regime to support the development of e-assessment by awarding
bodies, within a national framework which guarantees both standards
and security.
Paper 5[3]
is a comparative analysis of testing and assessment systems within
a range of other countries. Some of these are above us, and others
below us, in terms of international indicators of educational
and economic performance.
This submission focuses largely on assessment
in the primary and early secondary years of schooling, although
much is also relevant to the examinations for the GCSE and GCE
qualifications. This has been in response to the broad scope of
the terms of reference of the Inquiry, and taking into account
the recent attention given by the Select Committee to 14-19 education
and the adult skills agenda. There is much to be said however
about the assessment and reporting of practical competences and
skills in the workplace, and even remotely by the use of technology.
Should this be an area the Select Committee wishes to explore,
QCA would be very willing to provide a further submission.
We look forward to offering oral evidence in
support of the Select Committee Inquiry, and would value the opportunity
to respond to matters raised by other contributors.
June 2007
1 Not printed. Available on Committee website: http://www.publications.parliament:uk/pa/cm200708/cmselect/cmchilsch/memo/169/contents.htm Back
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