Uruguay abolishes numerical grading scales in schools

The Central Council of Policies (Codices) of Public Education in Uruguay this week passed a new regulation on assessment and grading. 

The document will come into force from next year and will abolish grading. Instead, students are graded on five levels: regular/regular, regular/good, good, very good, and excellent. 

This proposal was included in the teachers’ original proposal, but days earlier it had been voted on that each assessment should correspond to a grade from one to ten. In the end, the Codes voted against this dynamic and abolished grading altogether.

On the other hand, the abolition of repetition in the elementary level, in the high school and in the Universidad del Trabajo del Uruguay (UTU) was retained; even if students have more than five subjects with insufficient grades, they can pass the course. 

With this change, the National Public Education Administration (ANEP) wants to give students more time to pass their subjects with greater educational support. 

In those cases where students fail at the end of the year, they will attend classes for an extra week and undertake a new activity to change this situation. 

After that, the teachers’ meeting takes place, where the students are divided into three main groups: those who pass the year completely, those who make it partially – because they have up to four subjects with insufficient grades – and those who fail more than five have subjects. 

Those who belong to this last group do not have to repeat the year 2022, but they do in February if they do not pass any of the subjects. 

This means that no student will repeat the course in December, but those who still have five or more failed subjects after the second phase of support in February and an examination phase will be repeated.

COMPULSORY SEX EDUCATION

The code also stipulated that sex education classes at UTU are mandatory. An earlier draft had announced that sex education would become a non-compulsory seminar, which many teachers opposed. Due to the various recommendations, the subject was introduced as a compulsory subject and is taught two hours a week in the 7th and 8th grades.

With information form latinapress