Assessment for All Learners, in times of uncertainty, and crisis

So much has changed since we renamed and repurposed our “CTL Assessment Bulletin” to “Assessment For All Learners” in 2020. Then, the urgent agenda was to advocate how assessment should be fit for all learners, and not just for discrete technical purposes. But the uncertainties and crisis of the present age are of such a scale that arguably the educational and economic interests of all learners are threatened. Can assessment offer any hope in such times, or will it merely be used instrumentally to measure, and value (or devalue), learning and education?

We are living in a time marked by wars, climate instability, technological acceleration, and the rampant rise of artificial intelligence. These overlapping crises and challenges do not merely disrupt education and schooling; they unsettle our assumptions about knowledge, truth, merit, fairness, and even what it means to be human. In such a world, assessment cannot remain a technical afterthought or a system for ranking and sorting. It must become a deliberate practice for protecting and strengthening human agency for all learners.

In this issue, assessment for (human) agency and hope is explored. Assessment is positioned as a vital practice for safeguarding learning, dignity, and human agency in a time of uncertainty and crisis. We argue that assessment must move beyond technical measurement toward ethical, relational, and inclusive practice. To prepare learners for a future marked by uncertainty, and crisis, assessment should be repurposed to cultivate discernment rather than dependency, equity rather than uniformity, and dialogue rather than control. In a rapidly changing and technologised world, assessment becomes not merely a tool for judging performance, but a means of strengthening resilience, fairness, and thoughtful agency for all learners.

Ultimately, assessment always teaches something about power. It teaches what counts,  who decides what counts, and advocates for what kind of person a learner must become to succeed. In a world shaped by crisis and technologized intelligence, assessment must resist becoming a mechanism of control. Instead, it must become a site of dialogue that must not exclude learners, so that our learners may question (not necessarily challenge) standards, interpret criteria, negotiate meaning, and reflect on what evaluated merit in their learning means for them. 

To make assessment fit for our future is not to chase the next innovation or insert even more competencies into rubrics. It is to cultivate judgment over reproduction, agency over dependency, ethical discernment over procedural compliance, and dialogue over domination. When assessment protects and strengthens human agency, it becomes not merely fit for purpose, but fit for protecting what matters most for all learners in uncertain times.

We hope that the ideas presented and the challenges addressed in this issue will articulate the hope(s) you have as teachers to utilize assessment by all means and in all ways to strengthen and sustain vital learning and development for your learners. And because learning is so vital to our own sustenance as educators, that you will find hope and substance to reinvigorate your own love and desire for learning as well.

Kelvin Tan