EDUCATIONAL ACCOUNTABILITY AND TEACHERS’ CHALLENGES IN MEASUREMENTAND EVALUATION IN NIGERIA

Abstract

Quality education is quite essential for quality workforce of any nation. Educational evaluation is also a
task that must be done for quality education as it is used to gauge the quality of input, process and output
elements of education. Teachers in recent time are held accountable for the unimpressive performance of
students in schools and poor quality of work force in the society. Assessment and evaluation therefore offer
teachers the opportunity to give an account of their stewardship. Measurement, evaluation and
accountability are therefore interrelated. Accountability places emphasis on the measurement and
evaluation of students’ learning in which the end product is students’ results. There are myriads of
problems in educational measurement and evaluation too difficult for teachers to meet in making adequate
accountability. This paper therefore highlights the meaning and concept of measurement and evaluation;
meaning and concept of accountability; interrelationships among measurement, evaluation and
accountability; challenges facing teachers in measurement and evaluation in the context of accountability
and the suggested ways to surmount the identified challenges. Some of the suggestions made were:
Teachers should be adequately prepared during their training programme on how to match test items to
the learning outcome. They should also be trained in modern test theories