The PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) tests apply to OECD countries (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development), whose objective is to measure the ability of 15-year-old students to use their knowledge and skills in reading, mathematics and science to meet real-life challenges.
The results of these tests last year once again motivated questions about the quality of education in the country, especially in schools run by the State, since more than 50% of the students evaluated did not achieve basic skills in reading, mathematics and science. .
They give reasons
In the Union of Guilded Teacher Directors of Colombia (Usdidea), its president Jorge Echeverry Tamayo told this newspaper that “we are not opposed to measurement, measurement is something that serves us as one of the aspects to take into account. “It counts in the diagnosis and improvement that we must have in the institution.”
The teacher said “what we do not agree with is that with the differences that exist, for example, in Antioquia, everyone is put in the same basket and evaluated in general terms.” He explained that the technical half-day was implemented a long time ago in schools in this department, “for example, there are technical half-day schools in systems, in communication issues, in audiovisuals, and they do not have computers or the Internet.” Then Echeverry remarked that “if you take an international evaluation where they are going to measure you on that, what are they going to measure you if you don’t have it?”
Continuing with the example of Antioquia, the president of Usdidea commented that at this moment they have another problem that arose with the career entrance contest, and that is that there is a lack of nearly 600 teachers. “So if they are going to evaluate us in the Icfes tests right now in August, but throughout the year we have not had a Spanish or mathematics teacher, which are the basics, the results are going to be bad.”
Echeverry pointed out in the discussion about the low results of Colombian students in the PISA tests, “if we have optimal conditions, evaluate us under equal conditions, but as long as the conditions do not exist, then we want them to give us a differential evaluation. “Let the deficiencies that exist be taken into account.”
He added that “we should not get out (of the PISA tests), on the contrary, we should invest” in education. He maintained that since 2001, when Legislative Act 01 was made, “resources for education have been detrimental. We have done studies with a research center that we have, where we have said that investment in education has deteriorated by at least 300%.”
While andhe national president of Sintrenal (Union of Education Employees and Workers), Germán Patiño Soche, told this Media that “based on the issue of the evaluation of the PISA tests for students, girls, boys and young people, there cannot be a comparative table with countries on the European continent, since in Colombia the physical conditions, materials and supplies available are precarious. The General Education Law is defunded. Today, educational institutions do not have all the elements, there is almost no library, systems room, or laboratories. So the guarantees are very few.”
Professor Patiño said that the Government, instead of promoting the quality of education, has focused on increasing coverage, “to collect more and more girls, boys and young people, but it does not guarantee all the inputs. In this case, taking into account that virtuality now plays an important role, there is a very large shortage at the national level of this type of elements: system rooms, tablets and other elements that children need for their research and the development of their components. pedagogical”.
He added that “really, Colombia is light years away from this comparative table, with the United States itself. We are very far from reaching that goal, we are a third world country, with few conditions. It must be noted that last year the President of the Republic increased $20 billion in the education budget, but obviously this requires a new pedagogical model, a new instrumentation and materialization for the investment of those resources in all sectors, because they go to preschool. “basic, middle, secondary and university.”
He indicated that at this moment the first thing to do is guarantee an increase in resources to provide the quality factor in all educational institutions in the country, “that have the physical plants, the libraries, the system rooms. All the elements that are required today to have access. Let us remember that the population that the Government subsidizes is the least favored, strata one, two, which is where public education has the most impact.”
He said that it is also necessary to review and reorganize the curriculum, implement human material, as well as physical plant resources and sufficient pedagogical material for students to have access.
Professor Patiño said that while this is happening, “leaving (the PISA tests) is not easy because they are international policies where they have been linking countries, and Colombia today is part of the OECD.”
In turn, the vice president of the ADEC (Association of Educators of Cundinamarca), Andrea Vargas Cruz, told this newspaper that “from the union what we are demanding, and not right now, is the reform of the General Participation System. “It is that the necessary resources be invested in education so that all our students have equal conditions in all municipalities and in all towns, in all educational institutions nationwide.”
The teacher said that “we have educational institutions that do not even have drinking water, that do not have internet access. And at this moment we have educational institutions where, reaching the middle of the year, they have not even appointed the teachers to serve the student population.”
PISA 2022 (mathematics)
Singapore 570 points
Japan 530
South Korea 510
Estonia 505
Switzerland 500
Canada 490
OECD average 470
United States 460
Mexico 390
Colombia 383 (64th place)
Source: OECD
