ABSTRACT
Assessment affects people’s lives. The future directions and careers of students depend on it. There are risks involved in changing assessment without considering the consequences. This has meant that there has been very slow movement in the development of new assessment ideas and changes in practice. We face a system of assessment that has been subject to slow incremental change, to compromise and to inertia. We are afraid to change the system because of the risks, but we also avoid looking at it because doing so might entail major effort.
