The 15th KIX EAP Webinar on ‘Learning Assessments and Education Reform in the EAP Region’ was organised by NORRAG in collaboration with the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) on 26 October 2022. More than 240 participants from over 50 countries attended this online event. The presentations were conducted in English with simultaneous interpretation into Russian and Arabic.
Jeaniene Spink, Research Director of the Education and Development Program at ACER, opened the webinar with insights from the ACER research on how assessment data can be used for reform agendas in the context of SDG 4. Following this overview, the webinar explored the experiences of three learning assessments currently being implemented across the Asia-Pacific region.
The first assessment was presented by Michelle Belisle, Director of the Educational Quality and Assessment Programme of the Pacific Community, who introduced the Pacific Islands Literacy and Numeracy Assessment (PILNA). PILNA is a large-scale regional assessment that collects data on the literacy and numeracy proficiency skills of Year 4 and Year 6 students across the Pacific region.
Alejandro Sinon Ibanez, Project Manager and Policy and Programme Specialist, Southeast Asia Primary Learning Metrics (SEA-PLM) Secretariat, introduced the SEA-PLM – a regional learning assessment and capacity-building programme on basic education in six SEA countries. This programme is governed by the Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Association and UNICEF and generates comparative data on student learning outcomes.
The final presentation was started by Ketan Verma, Center for Educational Assessment at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, who introduced the Citizen-Led Assessment approach and the impact it has had on policies and practices in India. Baela Raza Jamil, CEO of Idara-e-Taleem-o-Aagahi Center for Education and Consciousness, continued the presentation by showing how the assessment was adopted in other countries and presented the citizen-led Early Language and Literacy Assessment initiated in 2021 by the KIX research grantee People’s Action for Learning Network.
Each presentation was followed by a lively Q&A session. Check out the webinar recording to learn more!
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