Asking the right questions for sustainable development goals: Performance assessment approaches for the Qatar education system

Questions determine our fate as individuals and societies. Asking the right questions at the right time and in the right amount makes our choices and decisions meaningful. As human beings we all experience this from an early age. In education, in order to evaluate, learn and inform the growth of students, the professional development of teachers and the overall efficiency of the system, questions become an integral element of the complex, non-linear and social system at different levels. The purpose of this article is to investigate how performance assessment strategies play a role in the education system, and to understand how progressive performance assessments can be set up with sustainable thinking and designed in alignment with the United Nation’s (UN) Development Goals (SGDs) for a given context. To aid Qatar’s pursuit in transitioning from a resource-based economy to a knowledge-based one, this study aims to design and develop a proper performance assessment (PA) framework that is aligned with the SDGs and education goals (EGs) to help achieve social and human development as envisioned in Qatar’s national vision. This article: (i) presents a theoretical and qualitative analysis of PA practices in the Qatar Education System (QES); (ii) provides a comparative analysis among the best PA practices at the global level; and (iii) examines the methodology, conditions, and findings based on learning from: (a) the successful experiences of other countries, (b) documented analyses of local past experiences, (c) local stakeholders (through a qualitative investigation) in order to understand the needs, develop recommendations and design a tailored PA strategy. The results indicate that there are misalignments between the core educational components such as EGs and the assessment methods used to evaluate them. The analysis and findings reveal that the QES urgently needs to develop a PA strategy that is appropriate for its stakeholders to meet the EGs and enhance their sustainability competencies. Finally, this study proposes a PA framework for the QES to align its core elements with SDGs and EGs.