Author:

Keywords:

attainment goals, standardised assessment, primary education, pupil trajectories, educational quality

Abstract:

Assessment of attainment goals in Flemish primary education: an alternative interpretation of the results Independent assessments of attainment goals at the end of the sixth grade in Flemish primary education have been implemented since 2002. Their aim is to measure the percentage of pupils attaining particular sets of official educational minimum targets. Combined with the school audits by the education inspectorate and results from international comparative studies, these assessments constitute the external quality control mechanism of the primary education system. The fact that the sixth grade does not cover the complete width of the pupil flow through Flemish primary education is often overlooked. About 10 percent of the pupils transitioning from primary to secondary education, have never been enrolled in the sixth grade. This contribution demonstrates, with concrete examples based on numerical data, that this blind spot in our view of primary education does have consequences for the interpretation of the assessment results. From a more general point of view, this means that the desired role of the existing assessments of attainment goals in the educational quality control process is not realised. The new standardised assessments envisaged in the coalition agreement of the current Flemish government will need to be carefully planned and executed in order to avoid similar shortcomings in the future.