SPBEA looks at assessment to help


The South Pacific Board of Educational Assessment (SPBEA) is looking at ways to improve the quality of education in the Pacific. One of the areas it is looking at is assessment.

Based on what is happening around, the world, assessment is increasingly being perceived as the process in education which focuses on improving teaching and learning in an effort to improve education quality.

Since 2002, SPBEA has been working with member countries to enhance their ability to monitor the quality of basic education and providing urgently needed information that will help in their effort to improve the quality of education.

Standardised tests for monitoring literacy and numeracy which are standards-based and outcomes-focused were designed in partnership with the countries for the purpose of monitoring the extent to which a country, school or pupil achieve their curriculum outcomes.

The instruments were designed based on the learning outcomes of the curriculum of each country. Since 2005, SPBEA has been working with the education authority in each country to include life-skills as part of this national monitoring process. 

The results of these national monitoring instruments have been used to set baseline standards for literacy and numeracy, identify weaknesses and strengths and also differences in achievement between cohorts, whether it be gender, schools, districts or provinces.

For assessment to play a useful part in improving educational quality, it must be responsive, that is, not only will it provide feedback but it can also help bring about changes based on it. ,

SPBEA has been working with interested countries to implement intervention strategies to narrow these identified gaps.

These strategies include the development of tools to enable teachers to identify the achievement levels of individual student in each learning outcome, the assessment resource tool for teaching and learning; (ARTTLe), and the implementation of a teacher competency module “Are our Pupils Learning? How Do We Know?”

The module which is a joint SPBEA-UNESCO project assists teachers to focus on learning outcomes as well as how to collect information that would enable them to determine the extent to which students achieve the learning outcomes.

Teachers need to know frequently and regularly what progress their pupils are making. So too, pupils need to be encouraged to recognise their own progress.

Cross matching pupil’s performance with achievement levels readily available in the classroom would be a teaching strategy of immense value. 

Another strategy is the development of regional benchmarks for literacy, numeracy and life-skills and working closely with national governments and development partners to use these initiatives to improve the quality of education in the Pacific.

Funding required for these initiatives are being provided by AusAID, NZAID, UNESCO, UNICEF and the Republic of China.

SPBEA is an intergovernmental organisation and its board consists of chief executives of member countries’ education ministries, representatives of AusAID and NZAID, consultative members (NZQA, PIFS, SPC, FSM, UNESCO, UNICEF and USP and observer members (Cook Islands, Niue and Marshall Islands). Its board approves SPBEA’s annual work programme.