Looking to the future of assessment at NCFE

At the heart of NCFE’s vision to promote and advance learning is the deep desire to help every individual achieve their full potential throughout their lifetime, whatever the starting point and however ambitious the goals. As the pace of change in the world is ever-increasing, particularly due to disruptive new technologies, major societal trends, and not to mention the ongoing global pandemic, the needs of the labour market will continue to rapidly evolve. This will require most people to continuously develop themselves to overcome challenges and seize opportunities, demonstrating their skills along the way. An integral part of enabling this development, is through looking at the future of assessment and identifying the key ingredients required to create a system that is truly transformational for learners in technical and vocational education.

In a series of articles, we will look at this from different angles, providing an update on the steps we are taking at NCFE to set up our learners for successful futures. This first article will focus on outlining NCFE’s vision for the future of assessment; supporting educators, educational institutions and systems, to improve teaching, learning, assessment, outcomes and progression for learners.

Why are we focused on the ‘Future of Assessment’?

NCFE is an educational charity with the core purpose to ‘promote and advance learning, helping to create a fairer, more inclusive society’. Our primary concern is the opportunities and outcomes that learners achieve in their learning, career and in life.

Within NCFE, we have a regulated Awarding Organisation (AO) predominantly focussed on technical and vocational qualifications, an End-Point Assessment Organisation for apprenticeships, and a diagnostic assessment and content proposition. Across our organisation, we have a wide variety of experts in teaching, learning, development, assessment, and a wealth of experience within the regulated education space – this includes teams such as Assessment Design, Assessment Production, Assessment Delivery, End-Point Assessment and Assessment Innovation. The experts from within all these teams enable us to draw on a range of perspectives and experiences that help to shape our thinking and plans.

The work we do in looking to the future of assessment will ensure our learners have access to world-class products and services that help them to fulfil their potential, not just in terms of academic attainment or employment outcomes, but also their wellbeing, mental health and happiness. In order to achieve this, we know we need to look at assessment used in a variety of different ways and at different stages of the learning journey, from pre-programme diagnostic assessment, formative micro and milestone assessment, through to summative end-point assessment and beyond.

Vision – breaking boundaries in assessment

As we continue to navigate the impact of Covid-19, there is no better time to review how assessment works, the place it has within education currently, and how this has to change. Assessment goes far beyond just ‘exams’.

We believe that we must do more to shift the current dated, disconnected and transactional approaches to assessment within formal education to systems and approaches that are truly transformational for learners, educators and educational institutions. Our vision is to break the boundaries of assessment within education and promote innovation that creates robust and reliable assessment within an intelligent education ecosystem.

Assessment will build trust, confidence, and value to all stakeholders and our solutions will be inherently fair, providing an appropriate level of ‘recognisable value’ to all stakeholders who have invested in learning. What’s more, assessment will be an integral component of the learner journey that showcases learner, educator, and institution level strengths, and developing true agency in learners across a lifetime of learning.