Assessment Practices in Igbo Language Education at the Primary Level in Cross River State: A Professional Audit

This study conducts a professional audit of assessment practices in Igbo language education at the primary school level in Cross River State, South South Nigeria. Effective language assessment is foundational to monitoring pupil progress, informing instructional decisions, and ensuring accountability in language education programmes. However, assessment practices in Igbo at the primary level in minority-language contexts like Cross River State are poorly documented and rarely subjected to systematic quality review. The research employs a mixed-methods audit framework, reviewing assessment instruments, continuous assessment records, and examination scripts from twenty-three primary schools across four local government areas, supplemented by structured interviews with forty-one Igbo teachers. Audit findings identify four principal deficiencies: over-reliance on summative written testing at the expense of formative oral and communicative assessment, item design inconsistencies across schools, inadequate integration of tonal and phonological accuracy in grading rubrics, and absence of standardised assessment benchmarks. Schools with recently trained teachers demonstrate significantly stronger assessment quality indicators. The study provides a model Igbo primary assessment framework aligned with national curriculum competencies and recommends capacity building workshops for all primary Igbo language assessors in the state. Keywords: language assessment, Igbo primary education, Cross River State, formative assessment, professional audit.