The department is headed by the Director who is assisted by three (3) principal officers and is responsible for setting of test items. 

Background to Test Development (TD) Department

There has been significant developments in the area of assessments and examinations in the last 20 or so years.   These developments have fundamentally challenged the traditional assessment practices and calls for new thinking, new ideas and new approaches to assessment in general

Notably, we want to persuade ourselves that the divide between the developed and undeveloped world (or whatever term befits the describer) must not extend to the science and art of testing.  Further economic fortunes of any state should not prescribe the kind of assessments to be applied.

For ECZ to achieve this, the function of test development has been delineated in a non obscure manner with research playing a pivotal role in informing the test development process.  An inbuilt framework for quality control checks in this regard needs to be understood in clear terms. This is meant to produce error free examination papers.

Other dimensions that the new restructure aims to address include:

• aspects of examination integrity  and confidentiality
• security of examinations items  through electronic item banking
• placing greater responsibility of integrity and security on the ECZ employees
• Reducing on practices that can undermine the integrity of examinations.

Apart from the above, TD is also responsible for:

• Commissioning Draft Paper and Item Setters
• Coordinating panel meetings for item and paper setting
• Proof reading and quality checks
• Item Banking
• Paper Typesetting