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Teacher Assessment As Policy Instrument: Contradictions And Capacities, Constant Leung, Pauline Rea-Dickins

Institute for Educational Development, East Africa

Assessment has been at center stage of educational reform in England and Wales in the past 15 years. This article argues that official educational assessment policy is essentially indifferent to the technical, pedagogic, and epistemological issues related to different forms of assessment. Policymakers are primarily concerned with “delivering” educational success in terms of reportable rising levels of attainment. The first part of this article provides a contextualized account of the use of assessment as an educational policy instrument and some of the consequences for pedagogy and curriculum provision. Our focal point here is on the assessment of English within the …