Intercultural Education in the Post-Primary School - National Council ...

ASSESSMENT AND CULTURAL DIVERSITY 7In the past, the main purpose of assessmentthroughout post-primary schooling was tomeasure and rank what students hadlearned, and indeed this model is stillwidely used, particularly in formal stateexaminations. This model relies mainly onsummative assessement which givesstudents marks or grades based on howmuch they have learned or the knowledgeand skills they can demonstrate in anexamination at specific points during theirschooling. The emphasis is on products(the presentation of the ideas, facts, etc.)rather than on the process (how thestudents set about collecting, organisingand interpretating the information).Elizabeth Coelho, points to the limitationsof such a narrow approach:The measurement and ranking model isbased on an implicit belief that not allstudents have ‘what it takes’ to besuccessful, and the job of the school is tofind those who do, and to nurture them.Closer examination often shows that ‘whatit takes’ consists of proficiency in thelanguage of instruction, congruencebetween the cultural values andexperiences of the home and thosepromoted in the school, educated parents,and higher socioeconomic status.(Teaching and Learning in MulticulturalSchools - An Integrated Approach, 1998)While schools and teachers are now moreaware of the need to help all studentsattain high standards of academicachievement and they recognise thatstudents’ understanding, skills andachievements cannot be easily categorisedinto one box or summed up in a singlegrade, the predominance of writtenexaminations that are heavily weightedtowards knowledge recall make it difficultto measure students’ performance over aperiod of time.There is a growing awareness of the specialdifficulties associated with assessingstudents from minority and immigrantpopulations.Intercultural Education in the Post-Primary School 91