Optimizing Assessment for All: Multiple pressure points in the middle - the case of Cambodia

• In Event: Advocacy needs in implementation of 21st century skills in education systems

Proposal

Cambodia's 12-year education structure is informed by its “Education Strategic Plan”. Within this plan, the curriculum specifies eight core competencies: literacy and numeracy, foreign languages, Information and Communication Technologies, communication and teamwork, analysis and creativity, applying knowledge skills, personal, family, and social development, and entrepreneurship and leadership. Each level of education across both primary and secondary levels has expected learning outcomes that include these skills, which are defined at subject level. As a consequence, Cambodia's Education Quality Assurance Department (EQAD), which is a department within the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport, is very proactive in exploring multiple approaches to assessment, both of mainstream academic achievement, and of 21st century skills.

EQAD is responsible for national assessments in Cambodia’s education system, as well as leading participation in PISA for Development and SEA-PLM. EQAD also staffs Cambodia's National Technical Team for participation in the Optimizing Assessment for All (OAA) initiative. EQAD has been assiduous in ensuring that teachers are familiarized with the 21st century skills being targeted in the initiative - critical thinking, problem solving, and collaboration. As the Department has engaged with teachers for OAA, the challenge of familiarizing them with vocabularies hitherto little used has emerged. This creates some reluctance on the teachers' part to engage in the process. Additional factors are the ever-present burdens of current workloads of teachers, and the competing demands for teachers to deliver outcomes associated with a traditional examination culture. With school leadership more aware of the aspirations of the Department and the Ministry more generally, increasing pressure is placed on the teachers to engage in activities associated with the new goals. The tensions, however, are apparent. How can high level aspirations be met by teachers who are still confronted by entrenched values in the system - with little understanding from policymakers of the anomalies posed by lack of alignment across system levels? Cambodia has confronted these issues through advocacy at leadership and school levels, as the extent of the disconnect between policy and practice has become visible.

Authors

• Ung Chinna, Education Quality Assurance Department at the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport

• Sarin Sar, Education Quality Assurance Department, Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport