ASSESSING LEARNING OUTCOMES

In 2019 through Global Partnership for Education (GPE) support, Save the Children in partnership with the Ministry of Education (MoE) and Bhutan Council for School Examination and Assessments (BCSEA) supported the development, finalization and endorsement of the National Education Assessment Framework in Bhutan. The project will support in enhancing the national assessment system to improve learning outcomes and the BCSEA will be conducting the first ever National Education Assessment for Grade 3 by the end of 2021.

The need to enhance the national-level education assessment and its guiding framework is considered a priority given the growing concern to improve the quality of education in the country. There exists no policy framework that governs National Education Assessments (NEAs). And the lack of a NEA Framework had resulted in unclear linkages with existing assessments and examinations causing misunderstanding of NEA as another high-stake examination.

International experience and research on learning assessments show that educational assessment can serve to promote accountability leading to improved quality of education systems. Along with diagnosing the health of the education system, national education assessments could lead to informed policy changes derived from research leading to recommendations for changing teaching/learning processes at the classroom level. The project has, so far, benefited 224 adults.