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Assessment of Student Learning in South Asia

Concerns and Challenges

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Handbook of Education Systems in South Asia

Part of the book series: Global Education Systems ((GES))

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Abstract

The focus of this chapter is on understanding assessment practices, challenges, and related concerns and the ways in which they have been addressed in South Asia, more specifically in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka. Though the paper focuses on understanding assessment-related pedagogic concerns, allusions are briefly made to the social contexts of these countries. This becomes particularly important because despite variations between different socioeconomic and demographic groups within and across these countries, this region has had a long colonial history and is characterized by low literacy levels, poverty, high rates of unemployment, and huge disparities in incomes among people, etc. The underlying argument of this chapter is that assessment practices and value attached to its results are largely influenced by the socioeconomic structure of the country, where the number of aspirants outweighs the number of awards available in terms of either job opportunities or seats in Higher Educational Institutions. Exams in such contexts perform the social function of elimination of a large number of students at each level. The chapter draws its insights from a study of related documents and research studies available and is broadly organized into two sections. The first section systematically documents assessment-related practices, issues, and reforms in all the four countries and the second culls out concerns that are common across them.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Education, Tata Institute of Social Science, Mumbai, India

    Disha Nawani

  2. School of Education, TISS, Deonar, India

    Richa Goswami

Authors
  1. Disha Nawani
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  2. Richa Goswami
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Correspondence to Disha Nawani .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, Maharashtra, India

    Padma M. Sarangapani

  2. Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Hyderabad, India

    Rekha Pappu

Section Editor information

  1. Graduate School of Education, Nazarbayev University, Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan

    Naureen Durrani

  2. School of Education, Tata Institute of Social Science, Mumbai, India

    Disha Nawani

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Nawani, D., Goswami, R. (2020). Assessment of Student Learning in South Asia. In: Sarangapani, P., Pappu, R. (eds) Handbook of Education Systems in South Asia. Global Education Systems. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-3309-5_47-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-3309-5_47-1

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  • Print ISBN: 978-981-13-3309-5

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