*Quality Enhancement in assessment Practices in Distance Learning: Context, Concerns ' Challenges Case Study National Open University Of Nigeria.*

 

 

*Quality Enhancement in assessment Practices in Distance Learning: Context, Concerns ' Challenges Case Study National Open University Of Nigeria.*

*Prof. Dr. Ikezahu Osagie Success.PhD.*

*Abstract:*
Increasing access to education and consequently rapid expansion of Open and Distance Learning (ODL) as a viable alternative pause to ensuring quality to develop Stakeholders’ confidence.Assessment in Open education is mainly associated with growth of learning of the learners and improvement of different programme allied with in the ODL system. The success of distance education largely depends on the total quality management and best practices for the quality enhancement of curriculum, delivery mechanism, assessment practices and student support services provided by the Universities.  Most of the criticism has been directed at the wide spread use of achievement test in open educational institutions. Many of our assessment practices place too much emphasis on assessing content and give too little attention to the skills and application. Critique in this evaluation fails to assess learner’s level of meta-cognition, creativity and other higher order skills, which are mostly the critarias of real life situations, work employment, personal and professional growth. In open Education system Self-Learning Materials (SLM), Personal Contact Programme (PCP) and assessment are supplementary to each other and assessment itself become a valuable learning experience. Learning and evaluation activities needs to be blended into a holistic act/task, which demands learning not to select but to design and create the task. In this changing scenario, quality enhancement in assessment practices need to be practiced in distance educational institutions for addressing meaningful learning rather certifying the learners.
Quality enhancement in distance education includes strategic initiatives for the Assurance and  improvement.Quality enhancement plays an important role for highlighting the quality assessment practices in distance learing platform. This paper outlines different aspects and trends of assessment practices in major distance education institutions. Indicators of quality enhancement in distance education programme have been discussed. This Article  further discussed the initiatives of NOUN for bringing quality enhancement in assessment practices and discussed different challenges in around the assessment procedure. Finally this Article suggests rethinking the alternative mechanism to be followed in assessment practices in order to enhance the quality in Open Distance Learning (ODL) system.

*Introduction*.
If we wish to discover the truth about an educational system, we must look into its assessment procedures. What student qualities and achievements are actively valued and rewarded by the system? The answer to this question is to be found in what the system requires students to do in order to survive and prosper.”D. Rowntree (1977)Open Schooling Institutions work on the ideology of individual differences and share the conviction that students learn best when they are intrinsically motivated and interested in the topic. This particular ideology shapes most of the Teaching-Leaning experiences and Assessment practices in the school. The focus is on the child and efforts are made to bring out the best and his/her latent talents. The teaching-learning processes are geared towards his/her learning styles and learning speed and assessment processes are inbuilt within the paradigms of teaching-learning experiences.Learners in the open-Schooling system are primarily those who, for one reason or the other, could not either join or continue studies in the formal system. In the Open Schooling System, a learner is required to learn at his/her own pace. He/she is expected to be a self-learner. One can learn at one own speed and at one own convenience. For this, a learner is provided specially designed printed self-instructional material on the course(s) offered by him.Besides print material, support materials like audio/video cassettes and practical manuals are made available to the learner.
Assessment is an integral part of the learning process. The traditional practice of assessment has changed to meet the need of the contemporary society. In this paper assessment strategies used in Open and Distance Education are discussed and constructive suggestions are given to meet the challenges of assessment. Recently we experience a paradigm shift in assessment both in face-to-face and ODL system. Content-based testing has shifted to performance-based assessment. Assessment is no longer used for grading and certification, rather it has linked with learning and skill development of the students. Instead of a single paper pencil test, a variety of techniques and methods are being increasingly conducted. In this context assessment in the ODL system has adopted a new shape to provide better assessment judgments to its students and at the same time helping teachers and administrators. Coping with the changing scenario in ODL we face challenges addressed extensively in this article.