SPBEA is an intergovernmental, regional organization set up in 1980 to assist the region and member countries to develop assessment procedures towards national / or regional certificates.

The Board administers two regional senior secondary school qualifications, the Pacific Senior Secondary Certificate (PSSC) and the South Pacific Form Seven Certificate (SPFSC), beginning in 1989 and 2004 respectively. These two qualifications replaced New Zealand based qualifications.

In the recent years SPBEA has increased its mandate to assisting countries to improve the quality of education through the use of good assessment practice and procedures. This has included introducing Assessment for Learning (AFL), monitoring of literacy, numeracy, and life skills standards, identifying problems through research, recording (profiling) and reporting of student results, and using the results of the testing programme and to assist in the development of assessment resource material to assist in future learning.

In 2006 further developments are taking place. Firstly, to develop regional benchmarks in Literacy, numeracy and lifeskills standards - this work is being done in conjunction with UNESCO and UNICEF. Secondly, the development of a Regional Qualifications Register with SPBEA taking over an accreditation role in the region.

SPBEA has a membership of nine countries (Fiji, Kiribati, Nauru, Tokelau, Tonga, Tuvalu, Samoa, Solomons, Vanuatu), plus Australia and New Zealand who are the main donors

Deliver quality assessment training to member countries to assist them in improving the quality of education through use of assessment procedures

• Deliver quality assessment support to member countries to assist them towards self reliance
  
• Provide quality, internationally recognized qualifications to member countries
  
• Commitment to be a centre for assessment information and research in the Pacific region