A Collaborative Approach to Assessing Teaching and Learning in the Pacific Islands Region

The Pacific Island countries comprise a vast geographical region with diverse cultures and histories, offering lessons of resilience and innovation in education. Improving achievement in literacy and numeracy, identified as a... [ view full abstract ]

The Pacific Island countries comprise a vast geographical region with diverse cultures and histories, offering lessons of resilience and innovation in education. Improving achievement in literacy and numeracy, identified as a key component of sustainable development, is a shared goal of stakeholders at all levels across the region.

How does a rigorous, comparable assessment work for students and teachers across the learning contexts of the Pacific Islands? This paper uses evidence from the Pacific Islands Literacy and Numeracy Assessment (PILNA) and the Pacific Benchmarking for Educational Results project (PaBER) to explore the systematic and contextual challenges of assessment that is rigorous and comparable. It argues that an assessment must have all stakeholders working in partnership toward agreed goals. Both the PILNA and PaBER initiatives are based in highly consultative and collaborative methodologies.

PILNA measures the literacy and numeracy outcomes of students after four and six years of formal education. The PILNA program promotes the importance of literacy and numeracy skills as building blocks for students’ future learning and for empowering citizens to communicate about educational futures. The PaBER pilot project supported education ministries’ research of their systems. It used evidence from PILNA, benchmarking of national education systems in five policy domains, and research on policy in practice to explore how systems support student learning. These initiatives support regional cooperation and rethinking of approaches to assessing teaching and learning for all across the Pacific.

  This paper suggests that the measurement of literacy and numeracy as competencies is necessary for sustainable development. Critically, it explores how consultation leads to shared knowledge and how a regional assessment has resulted in a partnership for learning in the Pacific. From a broader perspective, this paper grapples with issues relating to the challenges of developing rigorous assessments that recognize diversity in learners.