British Council is working in partnership with the Education Review Office in developing and delivering the National Assessment of Student Achievement (NASA) test for grade 8 in English.
Language assessments had previously only been carried out for reading and writing skills, therefore leaving the education system with limited understanding of students’ progress in speaking and listening skills. According to the Education Review Office (ERO), these skills had never been tested due to a lack of knowledge, skills, and capacity within the system. Nepal’s School Sector Development Plan (SSDP) focuses on quality assessment including the development of standardised tests for national examinations.
Following on from our past projects such as the Examination Reform Project, English Language Teacher Education Project, and most recently the SSDP technical assistance project, the British Council has been regarded as a partner of choice for the government on English language assessment.
Improved nation-wide assessment of English at the end of the basic level, focusing on content and administration. The project ensures the use of the assessment results to inform curriculum development and teachers’ professional development courses. This will be achieved through four components –
- Development of an assessment framework.
- Capacity building for test item writers.
- Development of a database of test items
- Administration of a nation-wide assessment and providing recommendations based on results
In November 2020, the British Council and ERO continued the partnership aiming to develop ERO’s capacity in language assessment framework development and to provide technical support in the production of the final report. The second phase of the project will mainly focus on:
- Building capacity for ERO
- Finalization of the language assessment framework for grade eight
- Production of the final NASA report