Reforms in Assessment as a Key Driver of Quality Education in Somalia

Abstract

Assessment and evaluation are believed to significantly influence the quality of teaching and learning processes of education. The assessment determines whether teachers have delivered the exact message and students have absorbed it. On the one hand, each course has goals and objectives that students are expected to have achieved by the time they have finished. Therefore, in order for teachers to determine whether or not the goals have been achieved, they use assessments to measure the progress that their students have made. As a consequence of this, the quality of the students would be heavily dependent upon the quality of the questions tested. On the other hand, it might be difficult and time-consuming for the instructors to prepare the exam questions. Poorly designed exams, however, do not measure the intended learning outcomes; instead, they typically provide unreliable or misleading information that may lead institutions and decision-makers to make the wrong decisions. Assessment can be crucial for accountability, transparency, and education reforms. As a result, the goal of this reform study is to present a useful assessment system that will enable the achievement of the aforementioned goals. The study intends to clarify the requirements for a Somalia-specific assessment system. It will highlight crucial areas of our examination system that demand the MoE’s immediate attention. The reform will also present the best evaluation system methods from areas with Somalia-like or much related features. Reforming exams only, however, will not have a significant impact unless it is combined with other fundamental changes such as curriculum reform, school accountability, student-textbook ratios, and teacher-classroom ratios and so.