Buenos Aires, Argentina

Monitoring Student Progress in Reading

The development of an appropriate and trustworthy evaluation system is mandated in National Education Law 26.206 and now incorporated into the action plan for 2016 to 2021, Argentina Teaches and Learns, stipulated by the National Ministry of Education and Sports.

National educational assessments in Argentina began in 1993. In the last decade, they have been conducted almost every year mainly in four subjects: mathematics, science, social sciences, and language at Grades 3, 6, 8, and 12 across the country. Assessments at Grades 3, 6, and 9 have been based on a sampling procedure that allows the assessment to be representative of the geographical and sector (state and private) diversity of the schools in Argentina. In Grade 12 or 13, which corresponds with the last year of high school, the assessment includes all enrolled students.

In addition to assessing achievement in various subjects, the national assessment surveys students, teachers, and school principals to help provide contextual information. Questions about participantsʼ social and demographic characteristics, school attendance, and academic expectations, among others, help policymakers, researchers, teachers, and the general public better understand the assessment results.²⁰

At the local level, the Unit for the Comprehensive Evaluation of Education Quality and Equity (known by its Spanish acronym, UEICEE) of the cityʼs Ministry of Education measures student learning outcomes in mathematics and language in the last year of primary school (Grade 7) and the last year of secondary school (Grade 12 or 13) in a census-based assessment administered every year since 2009. The language assessment comprises reading processes applied to literary, academic, and social texts as well as reflection on language. Both tests are based on the curricular design of the City of Buenos Aires: the learning goals and the objectives by year and by curricular area. Results are reported at the school district level and are accompanied by pedagogical recommendations. Together with the assessments, three questionnaires are administered to obtain contextual information of the curriculum in school and household contexts to make sense of the assessmentsʼ results.^e

In addition, teachers design their own evaluations to assess student reading learning processes. Typical assessments developed and used by teachers at the primary and secondary levels of education include written tests and open ended, hands on activities. Results from these assessments determine the progress of students throughout schooling.