School Based Assessment
Assessment
and schooling go hand in hand. The assessment in learners’ and learning is a
regular practice in education and are used to determine how far learners have
learnt or mastered and educational task or knowledge or how well an educational
process has addressed its set objectives. Anikweze (2005) precisely refers to
assessment as the “process of investigating the status or standard of learners’
attainment, with reference to expected outcomes that must have been specified
as objectives” when it concerns learnt output. The assessment of learners is
often ongoing in many school set up. In fact, it is even undertaken as a basis
for admitting students into the school. Assessment involves the practical
assignment of numbers or figures to describe the quantity, quality or frequency
of learning as the basis to interpret knowledge acquired.
School
based assessment as cited by Griffith (2005), refers to it as the “process
where students as candidates undertake specified assignments during the course
of the school year under the guidance of the teacher, as part of a subject
examination”. It is therefore expected that the school environment in its
totality provides a conducive situation to facilitate learning and subsequent
assessment procedures. School based assessments brings assessment and teaching
together for the benefit of the students and provides the teacher with
opportunity to participate in a unique way in the assessment process that leads
to the final grade obtained by his or her students.
Njabilu,
Abedi, Magesse, Kalole (2005) add that “the fundamental role of assessment is
to provide authentic and meaningful feedback for improving students’ learning,
instructional practice and educational options” which means that assessment is
not and should not be seen as an end itself but a means to a justifiable end of
learning. On the whole, teachers engage themselves in the use of various tools
and strategies including tests, take home assignments, project/term papers and
other measurement procedures for the assessment of the learners (Anikweze,
2005).
Continuous
assessment is crucial to school based assessment, it usually forms a
substantial component of any school based assessment policy as it ranges from
thirty to forty percent in a majority of cases. The continuous assessment
policy according to Njabilu et al (2005) “is entirely a school based
assessment”. This claim specifies the tie that exists between the two which
logically leads to the thinking that whatever affects one, affects the other.
The
introduction of continuous assessment ideally is to enhance better performance
of students by creating more avenues for them to earn better grades so that
students’ performance in each school subject is not determined at one sitting
situation.
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