Assessment in Art and Design Education: An Analysis of Practices in Botswana Primary Schools

This chapter examines the integration of assessment processes and procedures of expressive arts under the Creative and Performing Arts (CAPA) curriculum in Botswana. It focuses on how the Botswana primary school education system has incorporated means of profiling artistic learning and how teachers have operationalized this curricula requirement. We observe that, while the curriculum suggests comprehensive assessment procedures, no significant progress has been made toward learner assessment since the inception of the program, mainly due to teachers' limited knowledge of the arts and the recommended assessment processes. The organizational structure of the CAPA curriculum is also a constraining factor as teachers find it hard to be competent in all the discrete CAPA subjects. Teachers possess limited understanding of the aesthetic domain underlying art and how it can be assessed. This chapter recommends a revision of assessment procedures so that assessment includes both process and product and self and peer assessment.