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“The System is Robust, with Challenges and All”: Results from Mapping Education Measurement, Data, and Evaluation Systems in Colombia

Wed, March 13, 8:00 to 9:30am, Hyatt Regency Miami, Floor: Third Level, Johnson 1

Proposal

Background: Over the past three decades, the Colombian education system has made strides in increasing access to education and implementing major quality reforms. Guided by a series of 10-year national education plans, the Ministerio de Educación Nacional (MEN) established standards for academic and citizenship skills and strengthened national-level holistic learning measurement, data, and evaluation systems to assess students’, teachers’, and administrators’ progress. However, challenges persist due to the legacy of a 50-year political conflict and the influx of 1.7 million Venezuelan refugees and migrants since 2015 (Chaux, 2009; UNICEF, 2023). Patterns of violence and migration - and levels of school enrollment and learning outcomes - vary significantly within and across regions in Colombia. The system's decentralization allows schools to design their own curricula and pedagogy to respond to these unique contexts. However, this potentially creates misalignment between national, regional, and school-level goals for holistic learning and the information used to assess progress towards those goals.

Aims: We conducted a mixed-methods study to map the Colombian education measurement, data, and evaluation system, with the following objectives:
Identify types of information on holistic learning outcomes generated, used, and shared by education authorities, organizations, front-line service providers, and researchers, along with barriers and enablers to this process.
Evaluate the alignment between the information on holistic learning outcomes and the prioritized skills as well as the availability of professional development resources and supports, as perceived by the above stakeholders.

Sample: We recruited 36 survey and interview respondents, including staff from MEN/Secretaria at national and sub-regional offices, NGO and multilateral institutions providing services to Venezuelan refugee and migrant children, staff from Colombian research institutions, and teachers from schools in Bogotá and Cucutá, serving a significant number of Venezuelan refugee and migrant children. Participants were selected through desk reviews and recommendations from the Steering Committee.

Design, Method, and Analytic Process: We used an explanatory quant+qual sequential study design (Creswell and Plano Clark, 2018) with two main points of integration. We sequentially developed four sets of adaptive, open-source quantitative surveys and semi-structured qualitative interview protocols in English and Spanish tailored to different stakeholders. Participants filled out the surveys electronically, and interviews were conducted based on survey responses. Quantitative descriptive and social network analysis were performed using R. Interview audio recordings were transcribed, and coding was conducted using a framework described in Abstract 1. Inter-rater reliability for qualitative coding exceeded .75. Preliminary results were triangulated and shared with the steering committee for interpretation.

Preliminary Results: Significant efforts have been made in Colombia to design and implement reliable, valid, and fair measures that provide information about children’s holistic learning outcomes and the factors that support them. Researchers and policymakers (n=15) listed a total of 21 different tools. However, participants reported barriers to accessing and using the data and information that results. In addition, they highlighted significant differences in the role and agency of Secretarias in the MDE system. Findings will be organized and discussed using the framework presented in Abstract 1.

Authors