The Director of the National Testing Center, Bolatbek Abdrasilov, took part in the 26th Annual Conference of the Association for Educational Assessment – Europe (AEA-Europe), which was held from November 5 to 8 in The Hague, Kingdom of the Netherlands.

AEA-Europe is an international professional association that brings together assessment agencies, ministries, universities, and research institutes. This year, the conference was dedicated to the theme “The Evolution of Assessment and Its Impact on Education.” The event brought together more than 400 leading experts and scholars from 43 countries.

During the conference, the Director delivered a presentation on the development of the educational assessment system in Kazakhstan, the activities of the National Testing Center, and the achievements of scientific research in the field of psychometrics. In addition, participants were introduced to scientific approaches aimed at improving the reliability and validity of the Unified National Testing (UNT) items.

         An important part of the presentation was devoted to the international partnership implemented in cooperation with Educational Testing Service (ETS). Recently, the Minister of Science and Higher Education of the Republic of Kazakhstan, Sayasat Nurbek, and ETS signed a Memorandum of Understanding. Under this document, joint efforts will be undertaken over the next three years to improve the Unified National Testing (UNT) and align it with international standards. Conference participants highly appreciated this initiative and showed great interest in Kazakhstan’s experience.

The discussions also covered issues of scientific cooperation and joint research with the heads of Cito, AQA, and other leading assessment organizations. In addition, a productive meeting was held with Professor Damian Murchan, President of AEA-Europe. During the meeting, the parties discussed the possibility of presenting the results of the joint project with ETS as a separate symposium at one of the upcoming conferences.

In conclusion, the Director of the National Testing Center, B. Abdrasilov, emphasized that actively promoting the research results of the UNT testing system in a new scientific format on the international stage is fundamentally important not only for its global recognition but also for fostering the development of the UNT as a modern and technologically advanced assessment tool.