Assessment in Education, Vol. 10, No.

1, March 2003

Assessing Multiliteracies and the New

Basics
MARY KALANTZIS
Faculty of Education, Language and Community Services, RMIT, PO Box 71,
Bundoora, VIC 3083, Australia
BILL COPE
Centre for Workplace Communication and Culture, 73 The Esplanade, Altona, VIC
3018, Australia
ANDREW HARVEY
Australian Council of Deans of Education, c/o RMIT, PO Box 71, Bundoora, VIC
3083, Australia

ABSTRACT This paper addresses the skills and characteristics required of successful
learners, workers and citizens in the knowledge economy. The authors trace the shifting
commercial, technological and cultural conditions characteristic of this economy, and
highlight the key qualities now required for individual success. Effective learners will
increasingly need to be autonomous and self-directed, flexible, collaborative, of open
sensibility, broadly knowledgeable, and able to work productively with linguistic and
cultural diversity. While still prevalent, it is held that standardised testing and a back to
basics approach to curriculum are unable to promote and measure effectively these skills
and sensibilities. Instead, a broader and more creative approach to curriculum and
assessment is recommended. A new basics is argued for at the level of curriculum, with
correlative assessment techniques such as analysis of portfolios, performance, projects and
group work.

Introduction
At a time when they are perhaps least desirable, standardised basics skills testing
regimes are increasing [1]. The quest for accountability and commensurability has
focused global attention on producing education outcomes which are simple to
interpret, tangible and transparent, and easily comparable. This is done in the
interests of individual learners, who are seen to benefit from a culture of compe-
tition, and from the accretion of knowledge committed to their individual memories.
It is also done in the name of those whose delivery and rationalisation of education
resources is aided by figures that are comparable and easily interpreted. Finally, the
testing regime is justified in the name of parents who, it is argued, increasingly

ISSN 0969-594X print; ISSN 1465-329X online/03/010015-12 2003 Taylor & Francis Ltd
DOI: 10.1080/0969594032000085721
16 M. Kalantzis et al.

demand extensive information about the progress of their children. According to the
prevailing wisdom, regular, universal, standardised testing provides accountability to
the system, easily digestible information to parents, and regularly updated knowl-
edge of the progress and relative competencies of individual students (Bush, 2001;
Honeywood, 2002).
The effects of this outlook extend beyond assessment techniques to the curricu-
lum taught. Indeed, the increase in standardised testing reflects, and further pro-
motes, curriculum models which are focused around the so-called basics of
numeracy and literacy. Dominant extant assessment regimes are reinforcing these
old basics, but the very concepts of numeracy and literacy, and the skills required by
students, are themselves changing dramatically in the new economy (Australian
Council of Deans of Education, 2001; Cope & Kalantzis, 2000; Luke, 2000).
Assessment techniques therefore need to be altered, in many cases quite radically, to
promote new learning and to measure more accurately the skills required for success
in the twenty-first century.
Outlining these required skills is important, and can only be done by situating
education in the context of the new economy. The following section addresses this
context, arguing that a new basics is emerging, demanding skills and competencies
that cannot be measured by testing regimes focused on the old basics of literacy and
numeracy. Particular attention is given here to the possible reconceptualisation of
literacy and its ramifications for assessment techniques. A complex, diverse society,
in which knowledge has become the engine of national development and self-
fulfilment, requires a much more multifaceted approach to tracking and reporting
the educational achievements of individuals and educational institutions.
Finally, alternatives to current assessment procedures are canvassed, and it is
argued that a diverse range of techniques is necessary to measure the broad skills and
attributes required in the new economy. Moreover, instead of an individualised
learning outputs approach to educational performance measurement, this paper
advocates a systemic process of benchmarking learning inputsmeasuring teaching
skills, school resources, community resources. It is the authors contention that this
is the most reliable and more usefully predictive measure of educational perform-
ance.

Knowledge and Learners in the New Economy

Framers of both curriculum and assessment must be cognisant of the important
changes in contemporary economic, cultural and civic circumstances. The Aus-
tralian Council of Deans of Education (2001) has argued that knowledge today is
distinguished by three characteristics: it is highly situated; rapidly changing; and
more diverse than ever before. To claim that knowledge is highly situated is to
highlight its increasingly particularist nature: knowledge today is very specifically
linked into an area of specialist knowledge, or a particular technology, or a particular
subcultural interest, or a particular community group (Gee, 2000). This sheer range
of alternatives and life-wide settings severely limits the effectiveness of any curricu-
lum focused around empirically right and wrong answers, or of any assessment
 Assessing Multiliteracies and the New Basics 17

techniques which seek only to measure knowledge within this narrow context (Lo
Bianco, 2000).
Similarly, knowledge is rapidly changing, and changing at such a rapid rate that
any facts or truths learnt in schools today are likely to be redundant or contested
tomorrow, no matter how immediately relevant they may seem (Gee et al., 1996).
In this context, the key questions are what kinds of learning will be durable, and how
can we measure these? Finally, contemporary knowledge is diverse, increasingly
determined by the peculiarities of a particular social and cultural context (Nakata,
2000). As we shall see, this finding has implications especially evident in areas such
as literacy.
Several conclusions can be drawn from this understanding of knowledge in the
new economy. In particular, we can identify key attributes of successful learners, and
from this imagine a model of effective curriculum and assessment. Excellent learners
will be autonomous and self-directeddesigners of their own learning experiences,
in collaboration with others as well as by themselves (Gee, 2000). They will need to
be flexible, possessing problem-solving skills, multiple strategies for tackling a task,
and a flexible solutions-orientation to knowledge (Cope & Kalantzis, 2000). Impor-
tantly, good learners will also be collaborative, recognising that knowledge is
increasingly created collaboratively, whether in work teams, in scientific research
laboratories or through community development. They will themselves be good
teachers and communicators, and of open sensibility, able to work productively with
linguistic and cultural diversity (Australian Council of Deans of Education 2001;
Gee, 2000). Effective learners will be intelligent in more than one way, that is, their
intelligence may in turn be communicative, numerate, technical or process-oriented,
or it may be emotional, analytical, creative or critical (Gonczi, 2002). Finally, good
learners will be broadly knowledgeable, and in particular able to engage with the
different interpretative frameworks and contexts of specific information.

Learners and Multiliteracies

These broad findings can perhaps be better analysed within the specific context of
literacy. In terms of curriculum, it is clear that the old basics of literacy and
numeracy need quite radical redefinition, and the authors have argued that it may
in fact be more appropriate to speak of new content as Multiliteracies, a term
originally coined by the New London Group (Cope & Kalantzis, 2000; New
London Group, 1996). Within this paper, Multiliteracies is considered as micro-
cosmic of the broader notion of a new basics, in which both the traditional content
of, and the traditional orientations to, knowledge have been substantially revised.
There are features of our changing communications environment which suggest
that Multiliteracies may gain increasing currency in institutionalised learning envi-
ronments (Cope & Kalantzis, 2000; New London Group, 1996). One major
development is the growing significance of cultural and linguistic diversity and the
emergence of multiple Englishesnot only the different national variants of English,
but increasingly divergent functional Englishes (technical, professional, hobbyist
18 M. Kalantzis et al.

etc); sub-culturally and ethnically defined accents, registers and dialects; and inter-
languages (Lo Bianco, 2000). Immigration, multiculturalism and global economic
integration and communications technologies make these matters of increasing
practical importance.
Paradoxically, the globalisation of communications and labour markets make
differences in communication patterns and forms a more critical local issue. Not
only do local diversities/global proximities mean that communication is increasingly
a matter of negotiating discourse differences. The new technologies of the virtual
also allow the creation of ever-more dispersed and differentiated discourse com-
munities (ethnic-diasporic, professional, of interest/affect), as well as requiring the
constant crossing of borders, be that in neighbourhood living, or niche marketing, or
processes of citizen-participation, to note some major areas requiring new commu-
nicative competence in an era of cultural pluralism. In this environment, the
question of the basics of learning needs to be re-examined (Kalantzis & Cope,
1999). Literacy itself needs to be conceived of more broadly than the coding of oral
to written language, to include what we have termed Multiliteracies (Cope &
Kalantzis, 2000; New London Group, 1996).

Multiliteracies and Communications Technologies

Within the literacy paradigm, then, the qualities that will be required by effective
learners in future are clearly evident. The diversification of the communications
environment demands that effective learners will be flexible, autonomous, and able
to work with cultural and linguistic diversity. Moreover, the need for collaboration,
and for problem-solving skills, is further evidenced by a second major change to the
way we must conceive of literacy. This is the nature of new communications
technologies.
Meaning is made in ways that are increasingly multimodalin which written-
linguistic modes of meaning interface with visual, aural, gestural and spatial patterns
of meaning (Gilster, 1997; Mitchell, 1995). Moreover, our recent Creator to
Consumer research (Cope & Freeman, 2001; Cope & Mason, 2001) indicates that
the most recent digital technologies for the creation and dissemination of text
require explicit metalanguages along the general lines of the multimodal functional
grammar which has developed as a component of the Multiliteracies research,
including a capacity to deal with cultural and linguistic differences within and
between languages (Cope & Gollings, 2001). Within the Multiliteracies paradigm,
analysing the structure and social uses of the emerging digital technologies is critical.
Most importantly, the new technologies, and more broadly the changing social
worlds of work and citizenship, require a new educational response. The imagery of
the old technology and the old world of work is clear and familiarthe factories with
smokestacks piercing the horizon which we used to see as signs of progress. Behind
the factory walls was the heavy plant which added up to the fixed assets of industrial
capitalism. Geared for long-run mass production of manufactured things, human
beings became mere appendages to the machine. Indeed, the logic of the production
line minimised human skill requirements, as tasks were divided into smaller and
 Assessing Multiliteracies and the New Basics 19

smaller functionsscrewing this particular bolt onto the manufactured object as it

went past on the conveyor belt. This was the human degradation of the modern
factory. It was also its genius, to arrange technology in such as way as to be able to
manufacture items of unprecedented technological sophistication (such as Mar-
conis radio set, or Henry Fords motor car), using an unskilled workforce (Cope &
Kalantzis, 1997).

The Basics of Old Learning

Old education systems fitted very neatly into this old world of work. The state
determined the syllabus, the textbooks followed the syllabus, the teachers followed
the textbooks, and the students followed the textbooks, hopefully, in order to pass
the tests. Henry Ford know what was best for his customersany colour you like,
so long as its blackand the state knew what was best for children. And, in a way,
teachers became a bit like production line workers, slaves to the syllabus, the
textbooks and the examination system. The curriculum was packed with infor-
mation in the form of quite definite factsfacts about history, facts about science
and language facts in the form of proper grammar and correct spelling. Together,
this was supposed to add up to useful-knowledge-for-life. Many of these facts have
proven to be less durable than the curriculum of that time seemed to have been
promising. Nevertheless, there was one important lesson which good students took
into the old workplace. From all the sitting up straight and listening to the teacher,
from all the rigid classroom discipline, from all the knowledge imparted to them and
uncritically ingested, they learnt to accept received authority and to do exactly as
they were told (Australian Council of Deans of Education, 2001).
The basics of old learning were encapsulated in the three Rsreading, writing
and arithmetic. The process was learning by rote and knowing the correct answers.
Discipline was demonstrated in tests as the successful acquisition of received facts
and the regurgitation of rigidly defined truths. This kind of education certainly
produced people who had learnt things, but things which were too often narrow,
decontextualised, abstract and fragmented into subject areas artificially created by
the education system. More than anything, it produced compliant learners, people
who would accept what was presented to them as correct, and who passively learnt
off by heart knowledge which could not easily be applied in different and new
contexts. They may have been superficially knowledgeable (Latin declensions, or the
grammar of adverbial clauses, or the rivers of national geography, or the dates of
European history), but they did not have knowledge of sufficient depth for a life of
change and diversity. It was a knowledge that was appropriate for a time that
imagined itself as ordered and controllable (Cope & Kalantzis, 1993).

Technologies and Diversity in the New Economy

If the predominant image of the old economy was the factory and the smokestack,
the image of the so-called new economy is the worker sitting in front of a computer
screen. Information and communications technologies dominate this knowledge
20 M. Kalantzis et al.

economy. Actually, despite the hype, we dont just live on knowledge, as if the
economy has suddenly abandoned making things for trading in information and
symbols. We cannot live on symbols alone. But symbols are nevertheless every-
where. They are at the heart of new technologies, and especially the technologies of
digital convergencein the areas of communications, automated manufacturing,
e-commerce and the media. Even in the manufacturing sector where people still
energetically make things, they now make them using screen-based interfaces, and
these are linguistically, visually and symbolically driven. The production line is still
there, but now robots are screwing on the bolts. These technologies, moreover, are
constantly shifting.
The new technologies are software rather than hardware intensive, as well as
flexible and open to multiple uses. Software replacements are made far more
frequently than was the case for plant replacement in the old economy. This means
that technical knowledge has a shorter and shorter shelf-life. Up-skilling needs to
occur continuously. Indeed, contrary to the old economy process of de-skilling, you
need to be multiskilled, to be more flexible, more able to undertake a range of tasks,
and able to shift from one task to another as needs be. The key competitive
advantage for an organisation, even the value of that organisation, is no longer
grounded in the value of its fixed assets and plant, or at least not in that alone, but
in the skills and knowledge of its workforce. Indeed, technology is now very much
a relationship between tools and the knowledge of these tools in peoples heads.
Wealth increasingly has a human-skills rather than a fixed-capital basis.
Meanwhile, diversity is everywhere in the new economy organisation, and working
with culture in fact means working with diversity. Instead of Henry Fords assertion
in which individual customer needs are irrelevant because customers are all the
same, organisations now want to be close to customers, to find out what they really
want, and to service their needs in a way which works for them. Taking customer
service seriously inevitably means discovering that people are different, according to
various combinations of age, ethnic background, geographical location, sexual
orientation, interest, fashion, fad or fetish. Serving niche markets, this is called, and
systems of mass customisation are created at the point where high tech meets soft
touchsuch as the e-commerce systems or hotel registration procedures which
build up the profile of a customer, and their precise needs and interests.
Then, theres the diversity within the organisation. Teams work with high levels
of interpersonal contact, and work best, not when the members are forced to share
the same values, but when differencesof interest, association, network, knowledge,
experience, lifestyle and languages spokenare respected and used as a source of
creativity, or as a link into the myriad of niches in the world in which the
organisation has to operate. This world of diversity exists both at the local level of
increasingly multicultural societies, and at the global level where distant and differ-
ent markets, products and organisations become, in a practical sense, closer and
closer (Cope & Kalantzis, 1997).
We are in the midst of a technology revolution, moreover, which not only changes
the way we work but also the way we participate as citizens. From the old world of
broadcasting to the new world of narrowcasting, consider what has happened to
 Assessing Multiliteracies and the New Basics 21

one of the media, television. Instead of the pressures to conformity, pressures to

shape your person in the image of the mass media when everybody watched the old
national networks, we now have cable televisionfifty channels at first and hun-
dreds more to come. The channels cater, not to the general public, but to
ever-more finely defined communities: the services in different languages, the
particular sporting interests, the genres of movie. Add to this video and DVD, and
the choice is extended by genre and by language to hundreds of thousands of titles.
Soon there will be on-demand TV streamed though the internet. And to take the
internet of today, the millions of sites reflect any interest or style you want to name,
nurturing a myriad of ever-more finely differentiated communities. Then theres the
phenomenon of pointcasting, where the user customises the information feed they
wantrequesting information to be streamed to them only about a particular
sporting team, a particular business sector, a particular country of origin. As a part
of this process, the viewer becomes a user; transmission is replaced by user-selectiv-
ity; and instead of being passive receptors of mass culture we become active creators
of information and sensibilities which precisely suit the nuances of who we are and
the image in which we want to fashion ourselves.
In fact, digital convergence turns the whole media relationship around the other
waythe digital image of a baby which can be broadcast to the world through the
internet, or the digital movie which you can edit on your computer, burn on a CD
or broadcast from your home page. There is simply more scope to be yourself in this
technology environment, and to be yourself in a way which is different. The
technology convergence comes with cultural divergence, and who knows which is
the greater influence in the development of the other? The only thing that is clear is
that technology is one of the keys to these new kinds of self-expression and
community building. It is part of a process of creating new personspersons of
self-made identity instead of received identity, and diverse identities rather than a
singular national identity. In this context, senses of belonging will arise from a
common commitment to openness and inclusivity.

The New Economy and Education

So what do all these changes in technology, work and community mean for
education? The essence of old basics was encapsulated simply in the subject areas of
the three Rs: reading, writing and arithmetic. Actually, the very idea of the basics
indicated something about the nature of knowledge: it was a kind of shopping list of
things-to-be-knownthrough drilling the times tables, memorising spelling lists,
learning the parts of speech and correct grammar. This is not to say that multipli-
cation or understanding the processes of written communication are without educa-
tional worth. The real problem was with the orientation to knowledge: first, the
assumption that this kind of knowledge was a sufficient foundation; second, that
knowledge involved clearly right and wrong answers (and if you were in any doubt
about this, the test results would set you straight); and third, that knowledge was
about being told by authority and that it was best to accept the correctness of
authority passively. If the underlying lesson of the old basics was about the nature
22 M. Kalantzis et al.

of knowledge, then it is a lesson which is less appropriate in a world which puts a

premium on creativity, problem-solving and the active contribution of every person
in a workplace or community setting.
The fancier contemporary words for these old basics are literacy and numeracy.
And of course, mathematics, reading and writing are today as important as ever,
perhaps even more important. However, literacy and numeracy can either stand as
substitute words for the old basics, or they can mean something new, something
appropriate to the new learning. When they are merely substitute words for the old
basics, they are mostly no more than statements of nostalgic regret for a world which
is disappearing, or else they reflect our incapacity as adults to imagine anything
different from, or better than, our own experiences as children at school. Lets get
back to the basics, people say, and the operative words are get back.

The New Basics

When we use the term new basics we are indicating a very different approach to
knowledge. Mathematics is not a set of correct answers but a method of reasoning,
a way of figuring out a certain kind of system and structure in the world. Nor is
literacy a matter of correct usage (the word and sentence-bound rules of spelling and
grammar). Rather, it is a way of communicating. Indeed, the new communications
environment is one in which the old rules of literacy need to be supplemented.
Although spelling remains important, it is now something for spell-checking pro-
grams, and email messages do not have to be grammatical in a formal sense
(although they have new and quirky conventions where we have learn-as-we-goab-
breviations, friendly informalities and cryptic in expressions). And many texts
involve complex relationships between visuals, space and text: the tens of thousands
of words in a supermarket; the written text around the screen on the news, sports or
business programme on the television; the text of an automated teller machine
(ATM); websites built on visual icons and active hypertext links; the subtle relation-
ships of images and text in glossy magazines. Texts are now designed in a highly
visual sense, and meaning is carried as much visually as it is by words and sentences.
This means that the old basics, which attempt for whatever reason to teach
adverbial clauses of time or the cases around the verb to be, need to be supple-
mented by learning about the visual design of texts (such as fonts and point
sizesconcepts which only typesetters knew in the past). It also means that the old
discipline division between language and art is not as relevant as it once was.
Nor is literacy any longer only about learning so called proper usage. Rather, it
is also about the myriad of different uses in different contexts: this particular email
(personal, to a friend), as against that (applying for a job); this particular kind of
desktop publishing presentation (a newsletter for your sports group), as against that
(a page of advertising); and different uses of English as a global language (in
different English speaking countries, by non-native speakers, by different subcultural
groups). The capabilities of literacy involve not only knowledge of grammatical
conventions but also effective communication in diverse settings, and using tools of
 Assessing Multiliteracies and the New Basics 23

text design which may include word processing, desktop publishing and image
manipulation.

The New Basics and Learning

More than new contents like these, however, the new basics are also about new
kinds of learning. Literacy, for instance, is not only about rules and their correct
application. It is about being faced with an unfamiliar kind of text and being able to
search for clues about its meaning without immediately feeling alienated and
excluded from it. It is also about understanding how this text works in order to
participate in its meanings (its own particular rules), and about working out the
particular context and purposes of the text (for herein you will find more clues to its
meaning to the communicator and to you). Finally, literacy is about actively
communicating in an unfamiliar context and learning from your successes and
mistakes.
Education always creates kinds of persons. The old basics were about that:
people who learnt rules and obeyed them; people who would take answers to the
world rather than regard the world as many problems-to-be-solved; and people who
carried correct things in their heads rather than flexible and collaborative learners.
The new basics are clearly things which set out to shape new kinds of persons,
persons better adapted to the kind of world we live in now and the world of the near
future.
The pedagogical consequences of diversity, and of the emerging digital technolo-
gies, are numerous and substantial. At one level, the capabilities of literacy are about
effective communication in diverse settings, and using tools of text design which
may include word processing, desktop publishing and image manipulation. More
than new contents like these, however, the new basics are also about new kinds of
learning. Literacy, for instance, is not about rules and their correct application. It is
about being faced with an unfamiliar kind of text and searching for clues about its
meaning without immediately feeling alienated and excluded from it; it is about
figuring out how this text works in order to participate in its meanings (its own
particular rules); it is about working out the particular context and purposes of the
text (for herein you will find more clues to its meaning to the communicator and to
you); and it is about actively communicating in an unfamiliar context and learning
from your successes and mistakes (Cope & Kalantzis, 2000).
The need for flexibility, autonomy, collaboration, problem-solving skills, broad
knowledgeability, and diverse intelligence are all underlined by changes to the
traditional area of literacy. Yet the trend to Multiliteracies is simply a very visible
example of broader trends within the new economy, which suggest the need for new
orientations to knowledge. Learning will increasingly be about creating a kind of
person, with kinds of dispositions and orientations to the world, and not just persons
who are in command of a body of knowledge. These persons will be able to navigate
change and diversity, learn-as-they-go, solve problems, collaborate and be flexible
and creative. Promoting these qualities, however, requires significant change to both
assessment and curriculum regimes.
24 M. Kalantzis et al.

The New Learning and Assessment

Traditional assessment techniques are inadequate to measure the kind of skills and
sensibilities required in the new economy. Standardised testing is problematic for a
number of related reasons. It is, in the first instance, inherently individualised when
real-world learning is increasingly collaborative and knowledge is seen to be pos-
sessed by groups and organisations, relying on the information and recording
systems which constitute corporate memory rather than the memories of particular
individuals (Gee, 2000). Standardised testing relies on memory when knowledge is
increasingly supported by ever-present props (books to look up, people to ask, help
menus and internet links). Perhaps most critically, this kind of testing measures
certain limited kinds of intelligence, and to be precise, these are just those kinds of
intelligence which thrive on what tests measure. Tests are an excellent measure of
a persons ability to do tests, and not much else.
New learning certainly requires assessment, in order to inform students, parents
and prospective employers of the knowledge learnt by a person. However, new
assessment techniques mean redefining what is meant by terms such as competence,
ability, capacity and intelligence. Indeed, they even involve changing the measure,
from the replicated sameness of outcome anticipated by standardised testing, to
similar or comparable outcomes amongst learners whose life experiences, interests
and thinking styles are invariably very different. Standardised testing measures
whether its one-size content knowledge has fitted all (which it never can, and in fact
measures the similarity of some students to the single set of assumptions about
knowledge and thinking). New learning, by contrast, is taking students in the
direction of comparable levels of personal autonomy, self determination and access
to social resources in the worlds of work, citizenship and personal life.
There are a number of assessment techniques which will become increasingly
relevant to measuring the attributes of persons who will be most effective in the new
economy and most valuable as citizens. Project assessment, based on in-depth tasks
that involve task plan, complex collation of material and presentation, would
measure broad knowledgeability and a flexible solutions orientation to knowledge. It
would also enable some measurement of multiple intelligences, be they communica-
tive, analytical or creative. Performance assessment, based on the planning, doing and
completion of a task, would measure a wide range of skills, including organisation
and problem-solving. Group assessment, of the collective work of a whole learning
group, or of the collaborative capacities of individual group members, would be an
important means of measuring the collaborative skills so important in the new
economy. Finally, portfolio assessment, through documenting the body of works
undertaken, unique life experiences and other learning achievements, would enable
open sensibilities to be measured as well as the individual strengths of diverse
individuals.
Beyond these assessment programmes, it is necessary to conduct further research
into useful capacities which the current testing regime fails to test. Moreover, instead
of focusing on individualised learning outputs, resources need to be shifted to
benchmarking learning inputs. The need to measure teaching skills, school
 Assessing Multiliteracies and the New Basics 25

resources, and community resources is an important and oft-neglected one, but the
case for greater professional development and more equitable distribution of
resources is advantaged by enhanced information in these areas (Commission of the
European Communities, 2000). Quality teaching remains acknowledged as perhaps
the most important factor in students learning (Istance, 2001; Ramsey, 2000), and
an over-emphasis on standardised, regular testing remains a costly, and often
counter-productive, imposition on our educators.

Conclusion
The inadequacies of dominant current assessment regimes can only be viewed fully
in the context of dramatic changes to our economic, cultural and civic circum-
stances. Whatever the original justification for regular, universal, standardised test-
ing, its ability to measure the skills and sensibilities required in the twenty-first
century is limited. This paper has argued that a new basics is emerging, and with it
a need for skills and attributes far broader and more diverse than those previously
thought necessary to effective learning. Through the prism of Multiliteracies, it has
been argued that learners increasingly need to work with change and diversity, and
to be both autonomous and collaborative in their approach. Indeed, the broad
knowledgeability, flexibility, problem-solving ability, and open sensibility required
by successful learners today simply cannot be measured by assessment techniques
which focus overly on standardisation, universality and regularity.
Instead, a broad range of assessment strategies, focused on the performance of
tasks, the planning and completion of projects, group work and the presentation of
portfolio work, would better reflect these required skills. The pursuit and implemen-
tation of more diverse assessment strategies would reduce the substantial amount of
time and money wasted on the anachronistic and myopic practice of standardised,
narrowly empirical testing. Perhaps more importantly, the adoption of broader
assessment practices would have significant pedagogical implications, and would
serve to reflect more accurately, and to promote further, the skills and orientations
to knowledge required by successful learners in the new economy.

NOTE
[1] In Australia, for example, all state education ministers have recently introduced annual
statewide year 7 literacy and numeracy tests, though Victoria provides sample testing only
(Honeywood, 2002). In the USA, the position of President Bush is clear: Children must
be tested every year in reading and math, every single year (Bush, 2001).

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COMMISSION OF THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES (2000) A Memorandum on Lifelong Learning, Com-
mission staff working paper, 30 October, Brussels.
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