New Emphasis of School Assessment in a Changing World

The world after COVID-19 is unlikely to return to the world as it was before. This crisis is alarming since it has several new, unfamiliar and unprecedented features for all areas and sectors. Historically, pandemics have forced humans to break with the past and imagine and create a new one. This one is no different. Now the world today must be more inclusive, resilient, flexible and sustainable.

This paper argues that the pandemic has created a unique opportunity for educational changes that have been proposed before COVID-19 but were never fully understood or implemented mainly focusing on the ever-neglected part of learning and teaching, assessment. Now is the time to rethink what we understand from assessment, redesign how students are assessed and reflect on why we conduct assessments. The ultimate goal of the assessment should aim to prepare individuals to the real world and unexpected problems they will face now and in future. Therefore, the paper proposes that we need more performance based, alternative type of assessment which honor diversity, individual differences and prepare individuals to the real world.