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[Assessment 625] assessment in NzAlison Sutton alison.sutton at criticalinsight.co.nzThu Feb 1 16:49:18 EST 2007
Hi Marie, Alison Sutton here, I am an adult literacy researcher from NZ who lurks on this discussion list a lot. NZ is in an interesting position because we do not have any nationally mandated testing for adult literacy and foundation learning - but it is coming! Yes programmes do get government funding. At present providers have choice about the assessment and reporting methods they use. One reason is that we have few dedicated literacy programmes as such; most offer literacy skills development as part of achieving other qualifications. Pre-employment labour market programmes have to meet outcomes related to people moving on to further education and training or employment and achievement of credits in our competency based national qualifications framework. They can do all that without necessarily demonstrating any literacy gain. Programmes run by polytechnics (your community colleges) each work to an internally developed and moderated assessment systems and often do not have to show any literacy gain over and above course credit achievement. Those programmes that do get specific funding for literacy thru a dedicated fund do have to demonstrate literacy gain - in a variety of ways but mostly based around progress against individual learning plans or specially designed before and after assessments - not nationally standardised.. The government does want more systematic evidence that the increased funding into adult literacy is resulting in gain - but they at this stage are not pushing 'testing' as such. I am working with the University of Auckland on a government contract scoping how to develop a computer based interactive assessment system for adult literacy. The model we are looking at gives teachers and learners lots of information about progress and is much more formative in scope that the testing and reporting regimes most of your funders use. Alison Sutton, Critical Insight 52a Bolton St Blockhouse Bay Auckland NZ alison.sutton at criticalinsight.co.nz Phone +64 9 627 4415 Mob 021 279 6804 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://www.nifl.gov/pipermail/assessment/attachments/20070202/0d51d6cc/attachment.html
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