Continuous Assessment in Malawian Primary Schools: An Effective Policy on Paper

Abstract

Education reform is a catchword in academia particularly now that the world is becoming more complex. The Ministry of Education in Malawi revised its primary school curriculum in the early 2000 to address educational challenges. Two key aspects of the reform were a paradigm shift from teacher to learner-centered teaching approaches and the integration of continuous assessment in the teaching and learning process. The obvious anticipation of the primary curriculum and assessment reform (PCAR) was that the education challenges facing the primary school sector would be addressed. This paper argues that the emphasis on the use of CA to address the learning challenges in primary education remains a far-fetched dream if there is no radical reform in the system and operating context.