Assessment practice in Slovakia

I am now in the process of writing my essay for the AfL course. The main focus will be in Assessment and improvement of teaching and learning in Slovakia. I started quite well with Ideas related to school reform in Slovakia and questions how this can affect assessment system. There is very little notion of assessment in all reform documents, except some general recommendation and so it seems it would not change at all. Also as one my friend mentions he has briefly seen Ministry Guidance on Assessment five years ago… So probably he is not aware of new one from January 2009 and therefore it will have little impact on his practice, if any at all.

Teachers in Slovakia have quite large independence in terms of assessment and there are very little accountability and high stake testing, to take into account. It is traditional approach, which luckily remained in new system. Teachers mostly assess the knowledge or performance or the outcome (depending on the subject) either verbally or by teacher-created test (there is very little instruction on tests design in teacher training though).

Each subject has a list of standards with competences and knowledge expected form every student in particular year and using this standards, but largely using professional knowledge based on experience, teacher assess students by giving a grade on scale between 1-5(1 being excellent, 5 being unsatisfactory). Roughly a decade ago, some schools and teachers experimentally started with verbal grading/ verbal assessment only. This however is not supported by many teachers and society in general. There is an legal obstacle as higher secondary sector cannot use this verbal assessment and requires grades in admission process.

Assessment process is continuous one, where teacher selects individual students or assess whole class throughout the year. This results in selection of grades, which are a basics for end of term and end of year assessment – certificate, which is legal document (and even has to be given to students on certain date).

Grades 1-4 are pass grades (4 means satisfactory). Students who have more than two ‘unsatisfactory’ grades, failed this year and are hold back. They have to repeat whole year in all subjects. For those having one or two unsatisfactory grades, school and subject teacher has to provide additional mentoring program over summer and towards the end of summer (usually) they have exam in front of exam board named by headmaster from school teaching staff.