JANUARY 2014
SABER in Action:
Student Assessment
.4Laying the groundwork for quality learning
National governments and international agencies recognize the key role of
student assessment in building an effective education system. The assessments
provide information on whether all students in an education system are learning-
and how well. Without good assessment information, it is impossible to know
whether a system's policies and practices are working or how they might be
changed.
SABER-Student Assessment documents and analyzes the quality of student
assessment systems to help countries generate and use better assessment
data. The goal: to expand the scope and quality of learning for all.
Helping countries review their student assessment systems
SABER-Student Assessment helps countries understand how different assessment activities
can improve education quality and learning. It equips countries with diagnostic tools for  SABER-Student
three types of assessments:                                                     Assessment helps
*   Classroom assessments-to provide real-time information to support teaching and  countries understand
learning in individual classrooms.
*   Examinations-to select or certify students as they move from one level of the education
system to the next.                                                          assessment activities
*   Large-scale, system-level assessments-to provide feedback on the performance of the  can improve education
education system at particular grades or ages.                               quality and learning
SABER-Student Assessment shows countries how to strengthen the three types of assessments
to guide policy and decisionmaking. To be useful, assessments need to be strong in three areas:
*   Enabling context-covers the policy or legislative framework for assessment activities,
institutional and organizational structures, the availability of sufficient and stable
sources of funding, and the presence of trained assessment staff.
*   System alignment-refers to how well the assessment is aligned with the rest of the
education system.
*   Assessment quality-addresses the psychometric quality of instruments, processes,
and procedures, including the technical and ethical standards for reporting and using
assessment results.
UKaid
The Systems Approach for Better Education Results (SABER) produces                                 Australian
knowledge on education policies and institutions based on global best      THE WORLD BANK           a
practice, with the aim of helping countries systematically strengthen their                         Aid g--o
education systems to achieve learning for all children and youth.


Helping countries focus on priorities for change
More than 30 countries at different levels of development have applied SABER-Student
Assessment to evaluate the quality of their assessment systems and enact reforms to
strengthen them. The evidence-based tools allow countries to rate the quality of their policies
and system-level supports. Few countries have received the highest rating (Advanced)
for any assessment area. Several have received an Established rating (minimum desirable
standard) for one or more assessment areas. Most have received Latent or Emerging ratings,
so there is considerable room for improvement. Many are weakest in large-scale, system-
level assessment, which reduces their ability to use assessment data to monitor and guide
national policymaking.
SABER-Student Assessment also helps countries identify reform options and determine
their sequencing. For example, when Vietnam did its SABER- Student Assessment in 2009,
it received a Latent rating for international large-scale assessment, signaling the country's
lack of data for benchmarking learning outcomes. That solidified the Ministry of Education's
decision to take part in PISA 2012. The country's impressive performance on PISA 2012  SABER-Student
suggests that this assessment program will be a useful source of information to help  Assessment helps
benchmark and monitor policies and reforms for improved quality and learning.       countries identify
Angola's SABER-Student Assessment helped government officials set priorities for activities     tions
to strengthen the country's assessment system. It also underlined the need for trained staff
and stable funding to underpin future assessment reforms. The government established and  determine their
trained a technical group in the Ministry of Education and put in place a new budget line  sequencing
for assessments. It then implemented Angola's first-ever assessment of early-grade reading.
These efforts provided the foundation for a much larger set of assessment reforms and
activities.
Tajikistan used SABER-Student Assessment to guide a national reform of the university
entrance examination, which was viewed as a serious source of inequity in the ability of
different groups to enter higher education. Corruption and poor test quality had undermined
efforts to base entrance decisions on merit alone. The SABER exercise highlighted these and
other issues and indicated how they might be dealt with. The government then designed
and piloted a new entrance examination that addressed many of the issues of the old system.
Laying the groundwork for quality learning for all
Many low- and middle-income countries have a strong commitment to improving their
assessment activities, but they will need sustained support and commitment from the
international community to ensure that the changes take hold. Evidence-based tools such as
SABER-Student Assessment can help countries generate and use better assessment data to
expand the scope of learning for all students.
T O BAustralian
THE WORLD BANK         U         Aid    T                   .   www.worldbank.org/education/saber