Assessing Learning Achievement

How much are our children learning at school? Are there major gaps in their learning that need to be addressed? For tens of millions of parents around the world, these questions are deeply troubling. They and their children live in developing countries or in marginalized areas of the industrialized world where schools are underfunded, teachers lack adequate training and student achievement may or may not reach the level of basic literacy and numeracy. The research projects launched in the wake of the World Conference on Education For All, which held in Jomtien in 1990, have documented disparities in learning achievement not only between the various regions and countries of the world but within particular nations. This research undertaken by UNESCO examines the reasons for the growing global interest in educational measurement, lays out some of the central findings of the movement, and then takes up the all important question of how assessment of student outcomes can be put to the service of promoting quality education for all children. This book will be of great use to the researchers, educationists, policy makers and social service activists in understanding learning achievement and fulfilling the objectives of education for all.