Dunn-Smith

Paulette Dunn-Smith, senior director of the National Council on Technical and Vocational Education and Training (NCTVET), was elected as president of the Association of Commonwealth Examination and Accreditation Bodies (ACEAB) during a recently concluded conference in Pretoria, South Africa.

Over 80 representatives from examination and accreditation bodies gathered in Pretoria to share ideas about improving the quality of public education in the Commonwealth through assessment, accreditation and evaluation.

The conference looked at challenges, including issues arising from the accreditation of learning institutions, quality assurance, and assessment for learning, types of assessment and the enacted curriculum, with assessment as a tool to evaluate successful implementation.

Some of the important issues raised included: The impact of poverty on learner achievement; the positive backwash effect of examinations should enhance teaching and learning and inform interventions from the authorities; the reliability of marking and therefore the need for training, supported by the standardisation of marking schemes and quality assurance through monitoring and the capacity of teachers to enact curricula and the apparent mismatch of the results of internal continuous assessment and of external examinations.

As a way forward, the conference concluded that substantial changes were underway, but that there would be a strong reliance on regional initiatives to harmonise qualification structures within the Commonwealth. Dunn-Smith has pledged, in her capacity as president, to develop strategies for the sharing of best practices among member countries and will chart the process towards harmonisation of qualification structures through training and consultancy.

Representatives from Botswana, Ghana, Uganda, Nigeria, Malawi, Fiji, New Zealand, United Kingdom, Australia, Zambia, Pakistan, South Africa, Jamaica, Barbados, Lesotho, Namibia, Sudan and The Cayman Islands attended the conference.