Assessment in all its dimensions is a contested idea. Part of the contestation rests on the potential for assessment practices to exclude individuals, be it from work, from university and from schooling or, of course, from life opportunities. This contestation is sharpened when assessment of individuals on the basis of race is used to exclude individuals and indeed whole communities from equal opportunities to access work, university, school or any other context which has the potential to enhance a person's livelihood. In South Africa, a country which is strongly racialised, and one in which race was used as a factor to exclude the majority from access to basic opportunities, assessment and rethinking assessment take on a profound role – a role that must ensure the equalisation of opportunities between people, rather than the continued differentiation of opportunities offered to people, based on race. This will require careful shifts in how we think about assessment and how we practise it. We need to develop a view about what a just and equal society means for all of us, individually and collectively, and we need to rigorously explore the implications this has for assessment. Whatever the position that we take on this matter, it is clear that the implications for assessment in all its dimensions ought to be not only significant, but also society-changing in the most positive of ways.

This chapter argues that a greater understanding of alternative and even complementary approaches to psychometric testing and assessment would make an important contribution to conceptualising and implementing assessment practices that are fair as well as transparent, and that have an equalising effect in a divided society such as ours. However, there is a need to identify and even to develop such alternative and complementary approaches to psychometric testing in such a manner that assessors can engage with them effectively. With this need in mind, this chapter will explore a practical form of assessment that could potentially complement and perhaps even enhance psychometric testing in the South African context. It will proffer the portfolio of learning as an effective way to assess the prior learning of adults in higher education. By focusing on the assessment of prior knowledge, irrespective of where such knowledge originates, the chapter offers insights into the transformative potential of the portfolio for individual learning and development.