Competency-Based Assessment (CBA) Services in Ghana

In competency-based training, outcomes are defined first: each unit is drawn from an occupational standard and states what a competent person must be able to do, under what conditions and to what standard. Competency-based assessment collects evidence of a learner's performance and compares it with those performance criteria. The judgement is criterion-referenced, not a ranking against other learners; it rests on evidence the assessor has seen, examined or verified; and a learner who is not yet competent is told which criteria remain and is reassessed when ready. A sound assessment meets four principles, often shortened to VRFF: validity, reliability, fairness and flexibility. In Ghana, standards-driven assessment of this kind is the basis of certification on the national TVET qualifications framework administered by CTVET. For a fuller introduction, read how CBT learners are assessed.

Eljen takes on the whole assessment side of a programme, or any part of it:

1. Assessment design. Assessment plans, observation checklists, rubrics and marking guidelines for each unit, written from the performance criteria of the occupational standard rather than from memory of the course. In our methodology these instruments are developed in Phase 2, Programme Development, alongside the unit specifications and learning materials, and validated with industry and sector skills bodies in Phase 3.
2. Portfolio and evidence approaches. Instruments that draw on more than one type of evidence: direct observation of performance, product evidence, questioning, portfolios, workplace records and third-party reports. Because they are built on the standard rather than the course, the same instruments serve recognition of prior learning for people who learned their trade through apprenticeship or work.
3. Assessor and verifier training. Training for the assessors who gather evidence and make the judgement, and for the internal verifiers who sample, observe and compare decisions so that one standard is applied across assessors and sites, with a route to external verification. Capacity building for facilitators, assessors, verifiers and managers is one of Eljen's core services.
4. Accountability assessment. Development and administration of CBT accountability assessment, as part of our TVET assessment reform work to replace a multiplicity of testing regimes with consistent, standards-driven assessment.

Every instrument Eljen designs is traceable to an occupational standard and pitched at the level descriptors of the national qualifications framework, following the framework-aligned and internationally benchmarked principles we apply to all CBT design and grounded in Ghana's Harmonised CBT approach and CTVET guidelines. Assessment instruments and marking guidelines form part of the full training package that is quality-edited and submitted to CTVET for approval in Phase 4 of our methodology. They are also among the things a CTVET review typically expects to see when a programme is accredited: how competence is judged, by whom, with what instruments, and who checks the assessor. Institutions preparing an application can combine this service with CTVET accreditation support; those building the wider system can add quality assurance in education and training.

TVET institutes and technical universities introducing CBT or moving from end-of-course examinations to criterion-referenced assessment; regulators and sector skills bodies setting or harmonising assessment across a trade; development partners and NGOs whose skills projects must certify competence credibly; and employers who want certificates that mean what they say. Eljen is based in Accra, works across Ghana and has delivered CBT and TVET work in Sierra Leone, Liberia, Kenya, Malawi and Botswana.