Page 1872 - Week 07 - Wednesday, 22 August 2007
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assessment model, and there is no merit in changing what is a successful and well-supported system.
Continuous assessment provides for a more extensive coverage of the course content and allows for assessment of a broad range and depth of knowledge and skills over an extended period of time. It allows teachers to use a variety of assessment tools and strategies, including research assignments, extended essays, practical tasks, oral presentations and tests. It also gives teachers the opportunity to match assessment methods to the learning outcomes being assessed and enables them to select the most appropriate assessment tools to cater for the broad range of student pathways and learning experiences, including work-based learning.
Continuous assessment provides for the assessment of a range of thinking skills, especially at the higher order end of analysis, synthesis, and creative and innovative applications of new knowledge. Students in our current system benefit from continuous feedback from assessments and are encouraged to engage in regular and systematic study. This reduces the temptation of last-minute cramming that surrounds high stakes testing. It also reduces the dominance of a final exam on the teaching and learning process or the temptation of teaching to the test.
Continuous assessment provides feedback to students and assists them to make informed choices on pathways and options. Teachers are able to use their assessments to inform the teaching and learning process, enabling a focus on identified areas of weakness and extension activities for the higher achieving students. Unlike external exams, which have been described as highly stressful, continuous assessment reduces this pressure. If a student has a poor result in one piece of assessment, there is always the opportunity that they can improve their mark in a later test. Furthermore, continuous assessment generally provides a more natural assessment environment, closer to the situations students will experience later, including in university studies.
Continuous assessment in years 11 and 12 has had widespread community support since it was first introduced. The report of the Review of Government Secondary Colleges conducted in 2005 revealed there was a high level of commitment to continuous assessment by parents, teachers and students. During the review, no-one argued for external exams, and the report concluded that the assessment system operating in the ACT was comprehensive and thorough.
In her letter to Mr Barr, Ms Bishop wrote that external assessment was necessary to ensure national consistency. But there is no need for every jurisdiction to sit the same year 12 test to achieve this. The ACT government has recognised the need for a national curriculum and has agreed to national testing for years 3, 5, 7 and 9. But the federal government only provides the ACT with less than 10 per cent of school funding, so why should it feel it has the right to dictate to the ACT what its system of education should be?
Julie Bishop has failed to identify any substantial educational reason or demonstrate how outcomes will be improved as a consequence of introducing external assessment arrangements. In addition, she has failed to provide any evidence that at present universities or employers across Australia are unable to make reasonable assessments about the knowledge level of students in the ACT.
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