Abstract
Information obtained from continuous assessment may be used for summative or formative purposes. While one purpose may not be more important than the other, caution should be exercised in their use so that one is not compelled to obliterate the other. In school assessments, teachers may wish to use regular tests which they term as continuous assessment to find out about students’ learning but Black and Wiliam (2003) are of the opinion that the current approach of giving frequent short quizzes and the types of questions used are not supporting students’ learning. They argue that these frequent tests which are for summative purposes are not providing the guidance needed by students for their daily learning. Black and Wiliam (2003) thus suggest that teachers need to modify their classroom practices to include formative assessments which are known to have the potency of helping students to gain full control over their learning. This chapter argues that traditional African education is imbued with lots of philosophical learning and assessment strategies such as folklore, story-telling, proverbs and cultural rites that when incorporated into school science would improve its learning and assessment.