In June, 1999, the Party Central Committee and the State Council have issued the document "Decision on Deepening the Educational Reform and Promoting the Quality Education" in the third national education working session, which not only symbolizes the beginning of the basic change of our country's school education, but also symbolizes that the school education of our country has come into the era of thorough promotion of quality education. In June, 2001, the State Council held the national working session for school education and issued the document "Decision on Reform and Development of School Education" . The curriculum reform was apparently mentioned as an important issue in promoting the quality education. The new curriculum system which shall meet the requirement of the modern society, will be one of the main target of "the tenth five-year plan" with regard to quality education and education reform for schools. The Ministry of Education has formally issued the "Symposium on Curriculum Reform of School Education(trial edition)" and decided to greatly promote the curriculum reform of school education, to readjust and reform the curriculum system, construction and contents of the school education, to construct a new curriculum system which will meet the requirements of the quality education. "Symposium on Curriculum Reform of School Education(trial edition)" has set six tangible targets for the curriculum reform of school education. These targets have formed the general framework of the curriculum reform of school education. One of these targets is to weaken the function of over-emphasis on ranking and selection when doing the assessment, to strengthen the assessment function of enhancing the development of both students and teachers, developing the teaching methods. The reform and development of school education have set a higher requirement for educational assessment.

Our country's research on curriculum assessment has been comparatively weak since long. Our country hasn't established an efficient assessment system through the support of assessment to the curriculum reform of school education. In general, the school teachers and the teaching researchers of our country do not have a thorough and profound recognition of the important role and function of the curriculum assessment in the reform process of school education. In practice, the contents and forms of school assessment in our country are comparatively unitary----stressing the testing assessment, neglecting the non-testing assessment, stressing the summative assessment, neglecting the formative assessment. In order to adapt to the new educational situation, we must reform the current assessment system and assessment methods, and gradually set up a curriculum assessment system which can meet the requirement of quality education, can enhance the sustainable development of students and teachers, can promote the teaching methods and can make the curriculum more perfect.

The English Syllabus and the experimental curriculum standards issued by our government have set a target system for the English teaching in school education. The scientific assessment system is an important guarantee for reaching the goal of the curriculum. National Center for School Education and Textbook Development, the Ministry of Education and Beijing Educational Assessment Consulting Service Co., Ltd. have cooperatively started and developed the practical research project ---- Experimental Project of English Curriculum Assessment for School Education ---- with its aim to establish the assessment system for English curriculum in school education, to implement the content of " Standards for English Curriculum (experimental edition) ", to promote the reform of English curriculum in our country's school education.