Assessment is the course, sometimes.

I went on a visit to a school open day for parents of prospective students, and I took the opportunity to do a survey of the teachers present. I was asking about IT use in the main, but I asked the religion teacher how you teach religion. Well this obviously depends on the course, and as she said she is not looking to convert, but to inform and there is a lot of comparison religion material in the course. However one remark struck me: She said the students were generaly fine and interested in first and second year, but when they got to third year and realized that there was an exam at the end of it, teaching them became more up-hill work.
There is a nice distinction here between learning for the sake of it, typically associated with adult education, and the more usual paradigm that the assessment is the course.