Assessment in the 21st Century has multiple purposes, including assessment for benchmarking, ranking and accrediting. Most importantly, however, assessment is essential in providing the student and the teacher with feedback on the students' performance. This multiplicity of assessment purpose has clear implications for the design of assessment, the way that consistency, validity and reliability can be demonstrated together with the way that student performance is rated. This chapter is the first in three focused on assessment and it identifies and clarifies asessment purpose, design and audience for contemporary educational contexts, including secondary school education and Vocational Education and Training contexts. It identifies emerging priorities in assessment and reporting, including global and national priorities, individual capacity-building, and Information and Communications Technology (ICT) in assessment design.