Why capture socioeconomic status? Socioeconomic status (SES) is an important element in understanding the data from educational large-scale assessments – be they international, regional or national in scope. The importance of SES stems from its substantive effects on student performance,
As the Network on Education Quality Monitoring in the Asia-Pacific (NEQMAP) celebrates its fifth anniversary, its efforts to improve the quality of learning assessments are reaching more education stakeholders in Asia-Pacific than ever before. NEQMAP, established five years ago on
Education systems around the world are making the shift from paper to computer-based testing, which can offer an effective and efficient means of conducting assessments. But what are some of the challenges countries are facing when making this transition and
2017 was another year of growth and expansion for the Network on Education Quality Monitoring in the Asia Pacific (NEQMAP), for which UNESCO Bangkok serves as the Secretariat. The NEQMAP ‘family’, which had 18 members in early 2014, has now
The Catalogue of Learning Assessments (CLA) is the UNESCO Institute for Statistics’ (UIS) initiative to compile standardized information on various aspects of learning (or skill) assessments in countries across the world. The UIS implemented the first version of CLA in 2014 and
What is a culture of testing? High-stakes exams often determine learners’ futures: transition, graduation, entrance to higher education, to better schools, or to better jobs. In some cases, the stakes are so high that examinations can dominate thinking about the
Despite having a high enrollment, children continue to struggle with basic arithmetic and language skills. Study shows, although around 95 per cent of Indian children in the age group of six to fourteen are enrolled in schools, hardly half of
On September 23, 2015, the Ministry of Education in South Korea adopted the National Guidelines of the 2015 Revised National Curriculum. The new national curriculum will be fully implemented by the year 2020, and the key objective of the new
Recognizing the importance of capacity development, NEQMAP devotes significant attention to activities which aim to enhance the institutional capacity of the countries in the region in regard to learning assessment. Towards this end, NEQMAP has been organizing a series of
1. The Impact of Large-Scale Learning Assessments on Education Policy and Practice A systematic review on the impact of large-scale learning assessment on policy and practice in the Asia-Pacific was conducted by the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER), a
In Washington DC in early April, UNESCO Bangkok Programme Specialist Ramya Vivekanandan participated in a panel at the Brookings Institution’s annual research and policy symposium on “Skills for a Changing World”, which focused on the acknowledged trend in education toward a more explicit
Why Competency-based Assessment in Education in Bhutan? The school curriculum has high stakes for the nation’s state of peace and prosperity, because the quality of curriculum has a direct impact on the quality of learning in schools. The curriculum per
