Conference 04: "Assessment Strategies for Achieving Comprehensive Quality in Education", Beirut, Lebanese Republic, May 2004

Conference 04: "Assessment Strategies for Achieving Comprehensive Quality in Education", Beirut, Lebanese Republic, May 2004

The fourth (4) Conference of Arab Ministers of Education addressed the topic of "Assessment Strategies for Achieving Comprehensive Quality in Education". Eight reference studies were submitted to the conference, which collectively addressed educational assessment as a fundamental factor in achieving comprehensive quality in education, namely:

• Contemporary global trends in employing assessment to achieve education quality.
• The reality of educational assessment in the Arab states.
• Assessment and comprehensive quality in education.
• Towards standard specifications for achieving education quality.
• The student record and its role in assessment and guidance.
• Community participation in the assessment process; challenges and obstacles to education quality.
• Future strategies for assessment and the future of education quality.

The conference adopted the following recommendations:

• Calling on the Arab states to:

1. Establish specific policies for educational assessment that ensure accountability and enhance community participation, as well as building institutional systems and structures to achieve these policies.
2. Define national standards for the various elements of the educational process as a basis for assessment programmes and ensuring education quality.
3. Develop educational legislation related to assessment processes, so as to provide appropriate opportunities to accommodate contemporary trends in assessment, especially those related to competency-based assessment, continuous assessment, and authentic assessment.
4. Develop teacher-preparation programmes in faculties of education, teacher colleges and teacher-preparation institutes so as to ensure the qualification of their graduates.
5. Create internet websites presenting assessment systems and processes, and link these websites to a single Arab website, in order to facilitate the exchange of information and expertise in this field.

• Calling on the Arab League Educational, Cultural and Scientific Organization (ALECSO) to:
  1. Prepare programmes to develop the competencies of those working in the fields of educational assessment and comprehensive quality control, and supervise their implementation in the Arab states, leading to the preparation of high-quality frameworks and human resources in this field.
  2. Prepare the guides and references that ensure the dissemination of a culture of assessment and comprehensive quality among educational circles, and comprehensive quality, and supervise their implementation
  3. Prepare a unified educational dictionary to standardize educational terminology, especially that used in educational assessment, with the aim of creating a common language among the Arab states in this field.
  4. Develop standardized tests at the level of the Arab world, similar to what is done at the international level, in the basic subjects such as Arabic language, mathematics and science as a first stage, provided that it includes the other academic subjects in subsequent stages.
  5. Adopt projects based primarily on identifying pioneering experiences and distinguished expertise in the Arab states and other diverse educational fields, such as software production, curriculum development, textbook preparation, assessment systems, quality-control methods, reference guides, standard-setting and others, with the aim of disseminating them for the benefit of other states without resorting to producing new ones, in order to rationalize spending and invest distinguished expertise.

The conference issued the educational "Beirut Declaration", in which their Excellencies the Arab Ministers of Education affirmed the sanctity of the educational message and the nobility of its role in building the nation's generations in mind and will, referring to the circumstances and challenges imposed by globalization on our Arab nation, which require developing the capacities of generations in the knowledge society and consolidating its national and pan-national will. Their Excellencies the Ministers also affirmed the importance of adopting advanced strategies in comprehensive educational assessment and working to establish appropriate standards, both pan-nationally and nationally, for all components of educational systems as an entry point and basis for achieving comprehensive quality in education. And providing the educational climates that stimulate excellence and creativity for our children in the greater Arab world to face the challenges awaiting them in the era of accelerating globalization. This is through advancing education, which is a fundamental matter for comprehensive development and a solid basis for the nation's security and progress.