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This report for Australia forms part of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Review on Evaluation and Assessment Frameworks for Improving School Outcomes. The purpose of the Review is to explore how systems of evaluation and assessment can be used to improve the quality, equity and efficiency of school education. The Review looks at the various components of assessment and evaluation frameworks that countries use with the objective of improving student outcomes. These include student assessment, teacher appraisal, school evaluation and system evaluation. Australia was one of the countries which opted to participate in the country review strand and host a visit by an external review team. Members of the Review Team were Paulo Santiago (OECD Secretariat), co-ordinator of the Review; Graham Donaldson (formerly Her Majesty's Senior Chief Inspector of Education in Scotland; United Kingdom); Joan Herman (Director, National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing at the University of California--Los Angeles, United States); and Claire Shewbridge (OECD Secretariat). This publication is the report from the Review Team. It provides, from an international perspective, an independent analysis of major issues facing the evaluation and assessment framework in Australia, current policy initiatives, and possible future approaches. The report serves three purposes: (1) Provide insights and advice to the Australian education authorities; (2) Help other OECD countries understand the Australian approach; and (3) Provide input for the final comparative report of the project. This report is organised in six chapters. Chapter 1 provides the national context, with information on the Australian school system and the main recent developments. Chapter 2 looks at the overall evaluation and assessment framework and analyses how the different components of the framework play together and can be made more coherent to effectively improve student learning. Then Chapters 3 to 6 present each of the key components of the evaluation and assessment framework--student assessment, teacher appraisal, school evaluation and system evaluation--in more depth, presenting strengths, challenges and policy recommendations. Each chapter contains references. (Contains 6 tables and 12 boxes.)