Strengthening educational quality in developing countries: the role of national examinations and international assessment systems

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Notes

1. Primary science kits – a particular favourite of donors – are especially prone to under‐utilisation. In one school visited some years ago, as many as three different kits were found in a storeroom. None had ever been fully unpacked. Without professional support, many primary teachers lack the conceptual understanding, the psychomotor skills, or the confidence needed to carry out practical science investigations with their students.

2. Although there are exceptions, the examinations shared by members of the West African Examinations Council being a prominent example.

3. The more nuanced data generated by these assessment studies attract less attention, but nevertheless provide information likely to be much more useful in strengthening quality than the straightforward, but simplistic, league tables. For example, micro‐level analysis of response patterns to the individual items in low‐scoring countries could help generate fruitful insights into the reasons for pupils’ systematic errors, which in turn could help inform teacher development programmes.