The aim is to make a diagnosis of language and mathematics. For the first time, students with disabilities will participate.
According to the latest UNESCO evaluation, in Argentina one out of every two third-grade students does not understand what they read, and as social inequalities deepen, school performance worsens. With the aim of measuring how Tucumán is doing on this issue, this Wednesday the first Evaluation test for the Improvement of Educational Quality (Emece) in Mathematics and Language will be carried out, reported the Ministry of Education of the Province, in a press release. . The objective is to diagnose the situation, make the weak points visible and act accordingly.
Some 17,000 third and sixth grade students from 166 schools, public and private and from urban and rural areas, will participate. In this way, the 30% of students required to meet statistical validity is obtained. The great novelty is that for the first time students with disabilities will be included, with evaluation instruments adapted to their needs.
According to the Minister of Education, Susana Montaldo, the test is not census but sample and the institutions were selected anticipating socioeconomic and geographic diversity. “We are very concerned about the situation of our children, especially in the areas of language and mathematics. The secondary school teachers themselves verify this every year when they receive the children and notice the difficulties they have in reading a text and being able to understand it. For this reason, we are going to reinforce pedagogical strategies so that children can finish third grade with a better command of orality and writing, and perfect it in 4th, 5th and 6th grades. But to do this we must first know where we stand, where we are starting from, hence the need to make a diagnosis. In November we will do another quality test and we will be able to know if we are on the right track and if we have improved,” he explained.
The tests will be taken in each school or college. As for children with disabilities, they can count on the help of their respective support teachers.
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“In fact, last Friday, in coordination with the Directorate of Special Education, we held an awareness day for supervisors and support teachers about this operation,” he reported. Analia Gimenez, director of Planning and Educational Quality. “The objective of this operation is to carry out a diagnosis to contextualize the view, understand and analyze evaluation results that account for the difficulties that many of our students present in the development of basic reading and writing skills,” Giménez highlighted. “With the results obtained, it is proposed to make contributions and think about public policies appropriate to the local context,” she added.
Not very encouraging data
The data from the latest measurements were not encouraging. In the Learn 2021 test (primary level) a serious deterioration was noted, especially in Language, which reversed the improvement achieved between 2016 and 2018. In 2018 the level “Below the basic level” grouped 9% of the students but in In 2021, that figure grew 6.5 points more, counteracting the progress achieved in that period. While the Advanced level decreased 9% between 2016 and 2021.
In the Learn 2023 exams, a pronounced difference in performance in Language was noted depending on socioeconomic level. The group with the worst performance among students from low socioeconomic status amounts to 70%, while only 30% belong to the best performance group. Students with a high socioeconomic level obtained better results in the Learn 2021 tests. 79% corresponded to the group with the best performance, and only 21% were in the group with the worst results.
