Assessment issues for the twenty-first century

I will start with a number of quotations which emphasise the extent to which assessment drives the curriculum. "Assessment is the tail that wags the curriculum dog". "Assessment commonly has a backwash effect on the curriculum and on the processes of teaching and learning which go on within it". "Assessment operationalises our educational goals as much as it reflects them". It is generally accepted that changes in educational assessment should be planned in accordance with changes being proposed for curriculum. Curriculum and assessment reform should be undertaken together, with planned coherence, otherwise assessment reform will simply shape the curriculum by default.