Assignment No.1
Course: Educational Assessment and Evaluation (8624)
Semester: Spring,
Level: B.Ed. (2.5 and 1.5 Years)
ALLAMA IQBAL OPEN UNIVERSITY, ISLAMABAD
QUESTION NO.1
Discuss the stages of Piaget’s theory and its importance in Secondary Education (SSE).
Secondary education is an important segment in every person’s life. It also serves as a means to potentially empower girls, raise a person’s economic status and reduce infant mortality rates as these listed facts will show. Here are the 10 facts about the importance of secondary education.
- Child marriage would reduce by 64 percentif all girls received a secondary education. Moreover, early pregnancies would lower by 59 percent.
- There are more than 226 million children around the world who do not attend secondary school. If these children were all to go onto secondary education, then the under-five mortality rate would fall by 49 percent. According to Ann M. Veneman, the Executive Director of UNICEF, evidence shows that girls who receive an education are more likely to take better care of their families, and in turn, reduce infant mortality
- A person’s earnings should increase by 10 percenton average for each year of school they attend. As a result, education may help boost economies and bring populations out of poverty.
- In 29 countries around the world, children must complete secondary school. Some developed and developing countries will even pay for children to attend secondary school.
- In just 40 years, a country could raise its Growth Domestic Product (GDP) per capita by 23 percentthrough equal access to education.
- The attendance of all children to school would require $39 billionin funding every year.
- Children often start to drop out of school after primary school. The decrease in enrollment is as much as 10 percent worldwide and 34 percent in Sub-Saharan Africa.
- In the year 2012, reports stated that there were 168 million child labor workers between the ages of five and 17. This is one of the reasons a child might be unable to attend school.
- In most developing countries, public school is not free for children to attend, as they must purchase books, uniforms and other school supplies. Even factoring out the costs of going to school, 67 million children still do not receive the right to attend. As a result, millions of children do not obtain a proper education, making it difficult to find substantial forms of employment. One solution to this has been Child Empowerment International, an organization that works to provide educationto children across the world by setting up day schools for children without access to education, such as in refugee camps.
- While girls are less likely to be able to attend school in the first place, boys are more likely to repeat grades or drop out of school altogether. This is due to various issues within their countries, such as restrictions on education for women or early marriage.
QUESTION NO.2
Write a note on the importance of National Bureau of Curriculum and textbooks.
The first formal exercise in curriculum development was undertaken as a result of the Report of the Commission on National Education 1959. The Commission analyzed the situation pertaining to curriculum development and reforms and made useful commendations. Pursuant to the recommendations of the Commission the Ministry appointed two Curriculum Committees for Primary and Secondary Education in 1960.
In the mid sixties the new concept of integrated and modernized science courses was introduced. This effort was initially confined to science education but was later carried on into other subject areas also. It was a significant contribution made by a group scientists and curriculum specialists that they had succeeded in preparing the people mentally for change. Curriculum development was never visualized as a distinct and specialized function. The entire curriculum activity was done through committees which were created for a specific purpose at a specific time and were dissolved as soon as the task was over. No permanent committee network was set up to advise and evaluate the curriculum development and implementation. It is in this context, that need to create the National Bureau of Curriculum and Textbooks (NBCT) at Federal level was felt for coordinating the activities of various committees and centre. Similar organizations at provincial level were also established. The existing Curriculum Wing of the Ministry of Education is, in fact, a developed form of the National Bureau of Curriculum and Textbooks.
QUESTION NO.3
Highlight the importance of professional development and role of the Technology and Innovation in professional development.
Professional development (PD) in the 21st century is important to the growth and development of the contemporary educator. Today’s educational realm is full of multiple perspectives, technologies, and opportunities for students and educational leaders. The goal of professional development for educators is to go beyond maintenance and to create sustainability and professional longevity.
As students today continue to change and evolve in the areas of technology and access to information, the core values of being firm, fair, and consistent with their learning remains true. For teachers, effective PD in the 21st century comes from realizing this and finding ways to enhance teaching and learning strategies.
In education it is vital to know the importance of data-driven instruction to ensure students are learning effectively and teachers are providing engaging and rigorous instruction. Access to engaging, rigorous, and relevant PD for teachers is equally as important to develop, as is a consistent approach to training and development. Instructional practices of the 21st century must have components of technology, global learning, and the potential to impact a diverse range of learning styles. When looking at 21st-century PD for teachers and administrators, the goals of the training must be tailored to the specific needs of the educator.
Q.4
Explain the importance of evaluation and determination of curriculum.
The purpose of curriculum evaluation is to determine whether or not the newly adopted curriculum is producing the intended results and meeting the objectives that it has set forth, and it is an essential component in the process of adopting and implementing any new curriculum in any educational setting.
Evaluation essentially is the provision of information for the sake of facilitating decision making at various stages of curriculum development. This information may pertain to the program as a complete entity or only to some of its components. Evaluation also implies the selection of criteria, collection and analysis of data. It includes obtaining information for use in judging the worth of a programme and procedure. It is a comprehensive term and transcends standardized tests covering all means of ascertaining the results of construction.Evaluation of curriculum is an integral and essential part of the whole process of curriculum development. It is a continuous activity and not a “tail-end-process”. Evaluation and planning are complementary processes which occur almost simultaneously and continuously. Planning is made on the basis of evaluation and vice versa. However, as a separate state evaluation has its own entity.
Q.5 Explain the examination promotion and certification system in the context of Pakistan.
At present, 3 types of examination systems are being used in Pakistan: semester without external evaluation, semester with external evaluation, and annual with external evaluation. The first is being practiced in all private and few public sector institutions, whereas the latter 2 are in use in most of the public sector and a few private institutes affiliated with public-sector universities. The grading scheme in all these systems is quite dissimilar.
In collaboration with the Higher Education Commission of Pakistan, the Pharmacy Council of Pakistan devised the doctor of pharmacy (PharmD) curriculum in 2004 for both annual and semester systems without mentioning the need for external evaluation or the timeframe for adapting to a single system in the country. This is the root cause of unstandardization.3 Mahmood and Usman2 witnessed the defects of the annual system, which prompted institutions to slowly adapt to a semester system. However, this report was neither factual nor evidence-based, but rather a mere assumption. Standardization cannot be achieved by adapting a single examination system without incorporating a standardized grading procedure.