The results of UNESCO’s Third Regional Comparative and Explanatory Evaluation (TERCE) of educational achievement in Latin America were released in December. UNESCO has evaluated achievements of primary school students in the region since the mid-1990s, and overall these latest results look favorable.

Compared with the last evaluation in 2006, student achievement has improved in reading comprehension and mathematics in grades 3 and 6, and in science in grade 6.

Fifteen countries from South and Central America and the Caribbean participated in this evaluation (although only seven took part in the science evaluation). This is very valuable information, as only a few of these countries participate in other international evaluations, such as TIMSS, PIRLS, or PISA. However, while the regional averages improved, there were significant variations across countries.

Four countries (Ecuador, Guatemala, Peru and Dominican Republic) improved in all areas. Five countries (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia and Panama) improved in the majority of areas; three countries(Mexico, Nicaragua and Paraguay had mixed results and two countries (Costa Rica and Uruguay) showed similar or sometimes lower achievement than in the previous regional evaluation.

Gaps closing between countries

There is a trend of diminishing differences between countries: in other words, countries with lower achievement in the second evaluation where the ones improving more in the third evaluation -- although often times still well below the top achieving countries.

The most notable absence from TERCE was Cuba, whose students scored far above all other countries in the first and second regional evaluations. It is a pity that Cuba did not participate to verify whether the pattern of diminishing differences would hold with this country in the pool. Cuba does not participate in any other international evaluation.

Inequality has a big impact on low achievements

Beyond comparing scores across time and presenting averages, TERCE includes a very brief analysis of the factors that are associated with achievement in the region.

For most countries, attending a private school resulted in higher averages (the analysis performed for this tried to isolate the unique contribution of attending a private school on scores, although achieving this fully is not possible given the data in this study). Also, the reports showed that socioeconomic status, and school climate were associated with achievement; similar results had also been found in the previous UNESCO studies.

In almost all evaluations and countries, students who had repeated a grade achieved at lower levels than students who were at the target grade for their age.

This is likely due to the fact that many countries in the region have not developed policies to help students who start lagging behind their peers – except for making them repeat a failed grade in full.

Gender still an issue

Finally, gender is still an issue for the region, with girls’ achievements being lower than boys’ in almost half of the countries and tests.

Combined, these results confirm what has been shown for many social indicators in Latin America: inequity is perhaps the biggest challenge for countries in the region.

Beyond rankings and scores, what would be highly relevant is a pedagogical analysis of the results. TERCE publishes a curricular analysis on their website, which is as the basis for the evaluation and a good starting point for further analysis.

Such a more detailed analysis would be useful to redesign pre- and in-service programs for teachers, revise of materials for classroom use, and monitor the quality of classroom pedagogical interactions.

Any such initiative would have to consider equity as a core element. Continuing to improve averages while diminishing differences associated with socioeconomic status would be a worthy regional goal for years to come.

Santiago Cueto is the Country Coordinator for Young Lives and also leads the policy and communications work in Peru.

UNESCO is a close partner of the Global Partnership for Education and has a seat on its Board of Directors.