Transforming teaching and evaluation of 21st century skills
In June 2018, via the Optimizing Assessment for All initiative (OAA), the Brookings Institution in partnership with TALENT and the GPE, launched a study on assessing 21st century skills, which aims to identify tools and assessment items (national tests or in-class tests) for these skills in a sample of schools in nine countries of the region (Chad, Côte d’Ivoire, Democratic Republic of Congo, Gambia, Kenya, Lesotho, Mali, Senegal and Zambia). The results of this study will be published in the first quarter of 2019.
Still under the auspices of TALENT and GPE and the technical lead of the Brookings Institution, three countries (Democratic Republic of Congo, The Gambia and Zambia) have met at the end of November 2018 to start off the second in-depth phase of this initiative, which is going to focus on developing tools to assess specific transversal competencies over the course of the next year.
The delegations have agreed on the composition of their national research teams, with experts from curriculum, assessment and pedagogy and including at least one teacher. This second stream of the initiative will be a collaborative approach among the three countries.
At the same time it will look at how each country’s national education system can best construct its own way to teach and assess 21st century skills, ensuring that the countries can respond to the teaching and assessment needs outlined in their own curriculum.
Over the course of 2019, TALENT will host regular information sharing sessions so that all network members can benefit from the OAA initiative’s findings.
In addition, it will continue its overall program of capacity development, research and knowledge sharing supported by GPE’s A4L initiative, thereby making an important contribution to the strengthening of learning assessment systems of the countries of sub-Saharan Africa.
To learn more, please contact Valérie Djioze-Gallet (v.djioze@unesco.org), TALENT Coordinator and Program Specialist at the UNESCO Regional Office in Dakar.
The country members of the TALENT network are: Angola, Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros, Côte d’Ivoire, Democratic Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Ethiopia, Gabon, Gambia, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia, Malawi, Mali, Mozambique, Niger, Nigeria, Republic of Congo, Sao Tome and Principe, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Sudan, South Africa, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe. In addition, all GPE partner countries are eligible to participate in TALENT activities.