Educational assessment in Ghana: The influence of historical colonization and political accountability

ABSTRACT

The educational system in Ghana has undergone various reforms as a result of colonisation, changes in government and constitutional amendments. These reforms have been accompanied by changes in educational assessment programmes. This paper explored the history of educational assessment in Ghana, understanding how educational reforms, colonisation and political accountability have shaped the use of assessment information in contemporary Ghanaian educational context. High-stakes nature of large-scale assessment in Ghana has cultivated infertile ground for teachers’ formative assessment practices. Assessment is mainly perceived as serving accountability purposes, obscuring the improvement function (i.e. formative purpose) of assessment in students’ learning and fuelling ongoing tensions between classroom assessment and the more visible, higher stakes summative assessments. Research-informed assessment policy and sustained collaborative professional learning about assessment are critical to support a conceptual shift among all educational stakeholders to help them understand, value, and use formative assessment to support the learning needs of every students.

KEYWORDS:

• Ghana’s large-scale assessment
• assessment
• international large-scale assessment
• formative assessment
• Basic Education Certificate Examination
• West African Senior School Certificate Examination

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

David Baidoo-Anu

David Baidoo-Anu (PhD) recently completed his PhD in Educational Assessment and Evaluation at the Faculty of Education, Queen’s University. His current research focuses on promoting equitable assessment and learning experiences for underrepresented groups of students through culturally responsive classroom assessment. Specifically, he draws on culturally situated understandings of assessment and empirical evidence demonstrating the positive impacts of quality classroom assessment practices on raising students' achievement to advocate for systemic assessment reforms.

Christopher DeLuca

Christopher DeLuca (Ph.D) is a Professor and an Associate Dean at the School of Graduate Studies and Postdoctoral Affairs and Professor in Educational Assessment at the Faculty of Education, Queen’s University. Dr. DeLuca leads the Classroom Assessment Research Team and is Director of the Queen’s Assessment and Evaluation Group. Dr. DeLuca’s research examines the complex intersection of assessment, curriculum, and pedagogy as operating within the current context of school accountability and standards-based education. His work largely focuses on supporting teachers in negotiating these critical areas of practice to enhance student learning experiences.