the authors specifically stressed the importance of focusing more upon learning and less upon testing and claimed that the new assessment programme could be seen as a way of doing this giving norway a new start after the introduction of the national tests which they believed was part of an oldfashioned system in one article in fredrikstad blad august the journalists described two schools sending their teachers to dublin as part of the afl programme in order to study how irish students work with afl in an article in bedre skole three schools working on the better assessment project were presented and teachers students and school leaders were interviewed about their experiences the message was positive overall a yearold student was quoted as saying it is much easier to study for tests when we know what will be on the test and also know the criteria for each grade ruud p