Our speakers are also agreed - as you too appear to be by the very fact that you have joined us today - that an Institute of Educational Assessors is long overdue. Although assessors are already well supported by the awarding bodies and by their professional associations and unions, there is a need - as the wide-spread consultation we carried out confirmed - for a body dedicated to improving the quality of assessment carried out by both external and internal assessors, thereby increasing public confidence in assessment standards. The dedicated role of the Institute will not undermine or usurp the essential role our colleagues elsewhere play. We want to wok with all of you to enhance the status of assessment and assessors themselves.

As Ken pointed out, the public examination system depends on thousands of people who work as examiners and moderators. But every person involved in learning is an assessor. We are developing, in consultation with our stakeholders, a professional framework for membership of the Institute. We want to be an inclusive organisation, one which embraces individuals who are interested, but not active, in assessment (Affiliates) as well as those who have a high level of expertise which, in time, will command the highest recognition of Charter status. By encouraging people to join the Institute and then providing the opportunity for further professional development of their assessment skills, we hope to raise standards of assessment throughout the education and training system, from primary to Higher Education, from apprenticeship to high levels of craftsmanship. By impacting on assessment and raising its standards, we will also be impacting on the standards of attainment of individual learners. How we assess and the quality of our assessments are key to raising standards of achievement.

The issue of standards is close to the heart of anyone involved in education or training. The awarding bodies are charged with maintaining comparable standards from year to year so that society can be assured that the quality of attainment and of entry into Higher Education and employment is constant. Every year we debate whether that duty has been discharged satisfactorily. Thanks to the conscientious work of the Regulators and the awarding bodies, there is considerable evidence that it has, regardless of the changing circumstances in which assessment takes place and of the changing expectations of society.

Society's needs and expectations of the education and assessment systems change over time, particularly in a global world of fierce competition for jobs. The demand for highly skilled individuals who can access knowledge and use it appropriately has never been higher. It's important, therefore, to keep under constant review the appropriate curriculum for the modern world and ensure that the assessment system is fit for purpose. The impact of technology on teaching inevitably impacts on assessment not just in respect of the administration of the system but in how assessments are made. Assessors need to keep up with these developments and feel confident that they can still set appropriate and valid challenges and evaluate reliably the outcomes. The Institute will, in partnership with others, provide continuous professional development to guarantee a competent and confident body of assessors.

Understandably Government is interested in standards and the quality of assessment. Their support for the Institute, as expressed by the Minister - and I do thank her for her words of support - links good, fit for purpose assessment to improved standards of learning. You may recall the Minister's words:

Accurate and effective assessment is key to underpinning the drive towards improved standards. And excellence in assessment is also an essential foundation for our educational reforms. For example, in 14-19 education, a group of individuals capable of making professional judgements in assessment will be vital to the success of our new specialised diplomas.

The Institute shares the Minister's belief that it will have much to contribute to the national agenda to raise standards and make assessment more reliable and professional.

The diplomas which the Minister referred to (and which come into existence in 2008) will integrate vocational and traditional learning and thus significantly change the face of learning. The diplomas are rooted in the recommendations of the 2004 Tomlinson Review of 14-19 education, to which I was proud to be party. The Review recognised that the skills and qualities which we want to encourage learners to acquire through a diploma system do not lend themselves to the formal end-of-course examinations which dominate our current system.

The Review anticipated the need for a regime which would allow formative judgements, informed by explicit national standards, criteria and banks of tests, to be formalised into summative statements of achievement. The process would be one of continuously updating judgements on the levels of attainment reached by learners. This is the heart of good teaching and learning and is a process which is already followed in schools, colleges, universities and is the basis of assessment in most vocational courses.

The aspirations of the Tomlinson Review coincide with the assessment for learning initiatives and with suggestions that Key Stage testing should be rooted in the classroom, supported, as Ken has said, by national banks of tests to ensure consistent standards. All that sounds very modern and forward-looking but in reality there is nothing new in such proposals. Over 60 years ago, in 1941, a Government report - the Norwood report - stated that:

Ideally the examination (at 16) is best conducted by the teachers themselves as being those who know their pupils' work and ought therefore to be the best able to form a judgement on it...We think that an examination (at 16) conducted by teachers as part of a general assessment of their pupils would be in the interest of their freedom.. With this development would come greater responsibility for teachers - responsibility for shaping the course of pupils' work by learning how to appraise it rightly. On the basis of wider freedom and greater responsibility rests the increased status which in our opinion the teaching profession should enjoy in the future. Looking at the matter from the side of the pupils, we think that an education which is really child-centred can come about only if freedom is allowed to those who alone can make the individual child the centre of education, namely the teachers themselves.

Those sentiments accord so much with the Tomlinson proposals and the Minister's hopes. Yet the very fact that sixty years on we're still debating this issue suggests that the conditions for both teachers' and the wider public's confidence in assessment rooted in learning and the learning environment have not yet been created. Recent reports from Ofsted which draw attention to weaknesses in assessments in schools and colleges confirm that much still needs to be done to improve assessment practices. The Institute will do all it can to create the conditions whereby teachers' and trainers' judgements will be accepted as valid, reliable and trustworthy by the public. Recognition through membership of the Institute for assessors, including in due course Chartered status, will benefit individuals and the institutions in which they work. Public confidence is an essential ingredient of all assessment systems and is a precursor to any fundamental review of assessment practices.

Following this national launch, we will be taking the Institute out to the regions to assessment practitioners. The four conferences are already almost fully subscribed, an indication of the level of interest in this initiative. We hope that many, many people will wish to join us and start the process of the regeneration of assessment practices which may lead to a sea-change in the way we regard assessment in this country. Those who join us will find a supportive and receptive Institute in which they as members will have a major role to play to shape its policies and practices. A strong membership will enable the Institute to develop into a strong, learned and respected independent body, able to initiate and participate in debate. A strong Institute will raise the standard of assessment and thereby the standard of attainment of learners. That will benefit individuals and society at large.

Finally, I want to pay tribute to all those who have worked incredibly hard to get the Institute to this launch. I mention specifically our founder members - Professor Eva Baker, Professor Alison Wolf and Professor the Lord Sutherland - who by giving their support and allowing their names to go forward enabled the Institute to gain its legal status. The interim Board, chaired by Mick Walker oversaw that process and guided colleagues in the range of activities which have brought us to today: a network of stakeholders, an interesting and interactive website, our corporate image and logo, and our first magazine. We're starting the process of application to the Privy Council for a Charter, after which we can call ourselves the Chartered Institute of Educational Assessors and facilitate Charter status for the most expert of our members. This hard and impressive work has brought the Institute a long way and I thank everyone who made possible today's launch.

My last thanks are to you all who have come here to share this historic moment with us and who have given tremendous support to the development of the Institute. I am sure that we can rely on your future support as, together, we work to raise standards of assessment and achievement.

Thank you all very much.