Argentina records its worst performance in Unesco’s international learning assessment

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Before the pandemic, there were already severe learning deficiencies in Argentina. This is confirmed by a comparative test carried out by Unesco. Third and sixth-grade students performed below the average of Latin America and the Caribbean in four of the five subjects evaluated, reflecting the most significant drop in learning results ever recorded.

The data are alarming, especially if the complete series of the Regional Comparative and Explanatory Study (ERCE) is taken as a whole. In 2006, the first edition of the test, Argentina was above average in the four areas measured.

Six years later, in 2013, there was already a drop in performance compared to the region. The study revealed today that Argentine children show worse results than their peers in mathematics, language, and natural sciences.

Read also: Check out our coverage on Argentina

The ERCE is a representative test conducted by UNESCO’s Latin American Laboratory for evaluating the quality of education (LLECE). In its latest version, it covered more than 4,500 schools and 202,000 children, representing almost 20 million students in educational systems that house a total universe of 150 million.

In addition to Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, and Uruguay participated.

Argentina’s poor results in international tests are nothing new. Each edition of PISA reflects profound backwardness compared to first-world countries. What is striking is that ERCE also “loses” compared to neighboring countries, which until 15 years ago, surpassed.

Moreover, ERCE, unlike PISA, does not use the same questions for all countries. It draws up the questionnaire based on local curricula. In other words, it asks about the content that children should know.

“Since ’93, when Argentina started taking standardized tests, it is the most significant drop with respect to other countries, but especially with respect to ourselves. In 2013, although there was a slight drop with respect to others, Argentina raised its scores in the areas evaluated. Now we find ourselves with a very adverse panorama, which we will seek to reverse,” said Education Minister Jaime Perczyk during the presentation of the results.

Although the report does not generate rankings, the minister said that Argentina’s relative position is terrible. In South America, it would rank next to last, only above Paraguay and below Brazil, Uruguay, Colombia, Peru, and Ecuador.

According to UNESCO, in the two areas evaluated in third grade, Argentine children were 8 points below the average, a “statistically significant” difference. They obtained an average of 689 points in reading and 690 in mathematics. In language, 46% of the children performed at level 1, the lowest level, while in mathematics, 48.9% registered the most basic performances.

In sixth grade, students were at the regional average in reading, with 698 points, but showed severe deficiencies in mathematics (690 points, 7 points below the region) and, above all, in natural sciences (682 points, 20 points below the region). In these last two subjects, the most frequent result was also level 1.

Until now, there was a consensus that the biggest problems of the education system were at the secondary level. The national tests supported this assertion, with sufficient numbers for sixth grade and feeble numbers for the last year of compulsory education. But the ERCE results demolished that idea. “We have massive problems in primary as well,” Perczyk agreed.

INVESTMENT AND INCLUSION

The portfolio led by Perczyk blamed Mauricio Macri’s administration for the poor results. They highlighted an “abrupt drop” in investment by the State between 2015 and 2019, the year in which the evaluation was taken.

“The educational investment of the National State in Argentina experienced a notable setback in that recent period. While between 2003 and 2015, the consolidated expenditure of the National State in education increased on average by 2.7% of GDP, going from 3.4% to 6.1% of the product, between 2015 and 2019, it fell by more than 1.3 points of GDP closing at 4.8%,” they explained at the Palacio Sarmiento.

The other factor that the officials associated with the fall with respect to Latin America were Argentina’s high coverage indexes. It is one of the educational systems with the highest inclusion rate in the region: before the pandemic, almost 100% of children were in school in primary school. “We have to ensure that this inclusion also translates into quality,” they stressed.

“How do you start to get out of this?” asked Infobae. Minister Perczyk gave a series of keys: to advance in reinvestment in a “continuous and constant way above the projected inflation”, to provide didactic material to the students who need it most, to improve teacher training, to recover the Aprender Conectados program and, especially, to guarantee that all children return to school after the profound disengagement that occurred during the suspension of face-to-face classes.

LEARNING TESTS

Tomorrow, Wednesday, just one day after the ERCE results are known, all sixth-grade students in the country will take the Aprender tests. It will be the first evaluation in pandemic and will allow us to see the impact of school closure on learning.

In the new edition, 23 thousand schools and 770 thousand sixth grade students will participate and answer language and mathematics questions. Due to the lack of attendance, the evaluation was suspended last year.