I have presented this research paper at Jaffna university second international conference held on 20-21 July 2012

1. Assessment Process of
Competency Based Curriculum in
Primary School Education in Sri
Lanka
Faculty of Education-OUSL
P.Seneviratne & T.Mukunthan
Dept. Early Childhood and Primary Education,
The Open University of Sri Lanka,
20.07.2012
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2. Outline of the presentation
• Introduction
• Problem
Faculty of Education-OUSL
• Objectives
• Methodology
• Findings & Discussion
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• Suggestions
•

3. Introduction
• Grade 1 (5 years) to Grade 5 (10 years) is
considered as primary level
• Competency based curriculum is used in
Primary school level
Faculty of Education-OUSL
• The formative and summative evaluations
Methods are used
• Assessment is one of the main components in
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the curriculum process

4. Introduction (Con…)
• From 1997 Government has drawn
attention to enhance assessment
procedure in the primary education
Faculty of Education-OUSL
• According to Lambdin (2003)
observation, discussion and interviews
serve better than paper and pencil tests
in evaluating pupil’s ability to
understand the principles and
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procedures he uses.

5. Introduction (Con…)
• National Union of Teachers in the
United Kingdom(UK) also suggests that
parents should rely on the professional
Faculty of Education-OUSL
judgment of teachers rather than draw
conclusions from the outcomes of tests
which do not properly show the 5
achievement of their children.

6. Problem
• Many studies highlighted that, primary
teachers feel assessment criteria of the
children’s performance has
overburdened their workload. They
Faculty of Education-OUSL
have not enough time to teach in the
class room (Suranimala, 2006). The
study therefore questions as to how the
teachers at primary level feel satisfied
of their way of assessing the student 6
performances.

7. Objective
• To identify assessment methods that
teachers use at primary level
• To find out teachers satisfaction of
Faculty of Education-OUSL
assess children at primary level
• To find out the problem face by teachers
of assessment process in the Primary 7
level

8. Methodology
• Survey method was selected as the
most appropriate methods
Faculty of Education-OUSL
• A comprehensive Questionnaire used
for data collection.
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9. Population and Sample
• Target population for the study
comprised primary school teachers
Faculty of Education-OUSL
• Representative sample was selected
from the Homagama zonal education
office in Colombo district.
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10. Sample
Type of schools No. of Teachers
1AB schools 15
1C schools 45
Faculty of Education-OUSL
Type 2 schools 36
Type 3 schools 27
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Total 123

11. Data analysis
• The representation of data was done
through descriptive statistical method.
Faculty of Education-OUSL
( with the use of percentages and tables )
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12. Findings and Discussion
assessment methods that teachers use at
primary level
•Continuous assessment-subjective,
•common,
•portfolio and anecdotal report
Faculty of Education-OUSL
were used for formative assessment
•teacher made question papers,
• term test and question paper made by external
resource person
are used for summative Evaluation. 12

13. Findings and Discussion
• Most of the primary school teachers use both
summative and formative assessment
methods.
Faculty of Education-OUSL
• Because the new education reforms 1997 it is
compulsory.
• The in-service advisors are continuously
monitoring the assessment methods and 13
records.

14. Findings and Discussion
• Out of this 123 teachers
• 91% teachers used subjective,
• 96% used common assessment records
• 89% used portfolio
Faculty of Education-OUSL
• 90% anecdotal report
• 98% question papers
• 47% used term test paper made by
external resource person.
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15. teacher’s satisfactions
about the assessment
process
Record of Strongly
Assessments Agree
Agree Neutral Disagree Strongly
Disagree
No
respons
es
Subjective 57(46%) 23(19%) 06(5%) 25(20%) 10(8%) 02(1.6
assessment
record
%)
Common 59(48%) 24(19%) 04(3%) 22(18%) 13(11%) 01(0.8
Faculty of Education-OUSL
assessment
records
%)
Essential 42(34%) 19(15%) 16(13%) 33(27%) 11(9%) 2(1.6
learning
competencies
%)
Portfolio 22(18%) 21(17%) 14(11%) 41(33%) 20(16%) 05(4%
)
Short notes & 16(13%) 26(21%) 23(19%) 44(36%) 11(9%) 03(2%
Checklist ) 15
Maintaining 12(10%) 54(44%) 19(15%) 33(27%) 04(3%) 01(0.8
report card %)

16. Problems face by the
teachers related to the
assessments
Problems Percentages
Principal’s influence 32%
In-Service Advisor’s influences 30%
Faculty of Education-OUSL
Sectional Heads influences 25%
Parents influences 56%
Facilities 67%
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Others 34%

17. Suggestions
• According to the findings we can state that
assessment methods should be designed to
eliminate the problems encountered by the
primary teachers in their teaching learning
Faculty of Education-OUSL
process.
• Further the government has to pay attention
to primary school teachers’ development
and government should provide facilities to 17
achieve their objectives.

18. Suggestions
• The formative assessment criteria should be
enhanced in order to give the students more room
for correcting themselves.
• The assessments are in fact a tool to visualize the
Faculty of Education-OUSL
development of the student’s capacities and
competencies.
• They must not be a burden on both the teacher
and the student. The idea is that the learning
process for the primary grade students should be 18
made interesting and easy to follow.

19. Thank You
Faculty of Education-OUSL
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