The Executive Secretary for the National Examination Council of Tanzania (NECTA), Dr Joyce Ndalichako, has been elected new President for the Association for Educational Assessment in Africa (AEAA).
Dr Joyce Ndalichako
Dr Ndalichako was chosen during the just ended 31st AEAA conference organised by NECTA.
The NECTA Executive Secretary who previously has been serving as the Vice- President of the AEAA will be in-charge of the Pan African education body for one year.
“During my tenure I will make sure that education assessors on the continent are well trained under the ‘capacity building’ initiative and would like to encourage Tanzanians to make good use of the country’s position at AEAA to also pursue further training,” stated Dr Ndalichako.
She pointed out that since Tanzania has only one examination body, exam assessors in the country needed other platforms from which they can get developed technically and academically, even if it means to seek assistances from international organisations as the AEAA.
The new president also expressed gratitude to members of the association as well as the delegation at the 31st conference for electing her on the highest position.
Education experts from all over the continent were meeting here for five-day 31st Annual Conference of the AEAA running under the theme: Enhancing Assessment Practices for Quality Education.
The Second Vice-President in the Revolutionary Government of Zanzibar, Amb. Seif Ali Iddi opened the conference on Monday; calling for African countries to evaluate the success of education delivery.
There is a need to innovate assessment practices which provide reliable results reflecting the candidate’s attainment of the intended learning objectives.
Countries that participated in the conference include Mozambique, Gambia, Kenya, Uganda, Zambia, South-Africa and the host Tanzania, as well as overseas participants from the United States (US), United Kingdom (UK), Germany and China.
Tanzania is hosting the AEAA conference for the fifth time having played the same role previously in 1983, 1987, 1992 and 2002, before hosting the event again this year (2013) in Arusha.
Next year, the 32nd conference will be held in Lusaka, Zambia. This year’s conference addressed, among other topics, the role of classroom assessment practices in improving quality of education; enhance teachers’ capacity in assessments, for improving the quality of education and the impact of information and Communication Technology in educational assessment.
The week-long meeting also dealt with the relationship between continuous assessment and final examination scores: Implications on quality of education, dynamics of languages in assessment and learning outcome and the challenges associated with assessment of soft skills for quality Education.
The participants also debated about innovations in assessment practices and their implications in improving quality of education, as well as the impact of security breach on quality of examination and assessment.
Founded in 1982, the AEAA, with main offices in Lusaka, Zambia, operates along the main guiding policy of ‘Harmonisation of Educational Assessment on the African continent.’
The major objectives for the AEAA include; promoting co-operation amongst examining and assessment bodies in Africa; encourage relevant examining and assessment activities among members and sponsoring international participation in the field of educational testing and examining.
By MARC NKWAME, Tanzania Daily News
