Abstract

Most of the assessment activities in the past have been project driven in Pakistan. There is little institutional base either at the Federal or Provincial level to sustain assessment activities beyond the project timelines. Neither the traditional school examinations nor the external public examinations and selection tests for admission to institutions of higher education sufficiently fulfill the criteria of standardization and comparability required for a monitoring indicator. The Punjab Education Assessment System (PEAS) in the Education Department in the Government of the Punjab is responsible for conducting assessment tests for national and provincial purposes. Central to these efforts is the development of the institutional capacity of the Departments of Education at the provincial and area levels to monitor standards of education. A specific priority of PEAS within the overall assessments plan is to: “Build assessment capacity at the school, provincial and federal levels to better measure learning outcomes and improve the quality and effectiveness of programme interventions.” PEAS provides results on subject-matter achievement, instructional experiences, and school environment for the populations of students (e.g., all fourth graders and eighth graders) and groups within those populations (e.g., male/female students, rural/urban students). PEAS results are based on representative samples of students at grades 4 and 8 for the main assessments, or samples of students ages 9 and 13 years old for the long-term trend assessments. These grades and ages were chosen because they represent critical junctures in academic achievement.