This is cool: discovering where we are, discovering Venezuela and PISA

If you speak Spanish, read this.

Basically, tomorrow the government of Venezuela's central state of Miranda will present to the general public the results of the OECD tests carried out in that state. Some general data has been available here since last December. Results are only about schools under Miranda administration and private schools, as the Chávez government did not want to cooperate at all.

It has been thanks to Henrique Capriles and Juan Maragall and their team that  we had the first open test of pupils' competences in Venezuela in the last 14 years. Actually, this time it is really open as the Unesco studies carried out before were seen by education specialists only. Results came out at the end of last year, after some delay due to sabotage by the Chávez government.

The current national government - the military and Boligarchs - hates this kind of project like hell because such a project demands transparency. The Chávez government prefers to tell tales about "Unesco-certifications" and zero illiteracy that useful idiots abroad can repeat. Several people, including this blogger, actually asked in open letters for the Venezuelan government to take part in this project, a project where most of Latin America is already in. They ignored it.

I hope a lot of people start discussing in Venezuela what it really means to have first class basic and secondary education for everyone. I hope people really start thinking about what we need to get there.

More education for Venezuela

Here you can see the mean results for performance in reading according to the PISA test. Even it is well under the OECD average, the state of Miranda shows a better performace than Colombia and Brazil and Argentina, countries that have been taking part in this programme for some time. 

I am sure Miranda has one of the highest levels within Venezuela. Kudos to the education team of the Miranda government. It could probably do better if the Chávez government were not sabotaging as it does.

How to transform Venezuela into a developed nation

Venezuela needs to take a lot of steps to get on the path of development: attain real democracy, introduce open debates and much more.

Education will always have to come among the first steps. My proposal for the deputies of the alternative forces at the Asamblea Nacional: demand from the ministry of education to let Venezuela take part in the PISA programme for academic evaluation of public schools. So far the ministry of education refuses to allow transparency into the evaluation process. It prefers to tell fairy tales.

Take a look at the latest results for reading and comprehension for some countries for the PISA programme. All OECD countries and many more are currently taking part in PISA. On the Y axis you have the score (the higher, the better). The yellow rows are just a selection from Western Europe. Finland is, as usual, the best. The average EU pupils does a bit better than the Spanish pupil. The countries in blue are Latin American countries. The countries in green are other American countries. Dark red is the country with the worst results for reading and comprehension. For more information on the PISA programme, visit OECD's site.

Chile is really on the path of becoming a developed nation within our lifetime. When will Venezuela follow suit? How would Venezuelan pupils score the first time they take part in the PISA programme?


Ps. My guess is Venezuela would score now close to Kyrgystan if not below it. That would be embarrasing, but we need to find out. Else, we won't ever improve the situation. What is the Venezuelan self-styled "revolutionary" government afraid of?

Do you want to help Venezuela?

One of Venezuela's main problems is the average level of education level for the average Venezuelan.
As I wrote some months ago, we no longer take part in international evaluation schemes. Still, the last international evaluation tests in which Venezuela took part, back in 1998, showed: Venezuelas' pupils were lagging behind the rest of Latin Americans in mathematics (and that by far) and they are just "average for Latin America standards" in reading and comprehension. That means we are bottom of the bottom. I believe things have only worsened since then.


If we are ever going to make it out of underdevelopment, we need to change that. There are lots of things to be done to improve education but one of the critical ones is to bring transparency to Venezuela's system and determine where we are compared to the rest of the world and what we can learn from the rest. A group of Venezuelan students and professionals are asking now the Venezuelan government to join the Programme for International Student Assessment of the OECD, PISA. Imagine many thousands of Venezuelan pupils taking part in the same examinations Colombians and Germans, Canadians and Chileans, Dutch and US Americans take. Imagine we can examine what a random selection of Venezuelan pupils can do compared to the rest of the world. Imagine that is done on a regular basis. Imagine we start to examine in a very transparent way what policies we can take over from other countries to improve results. Imagine we start to make ministers accountable for real results.

Please, go HERE, take a look at the petition and distribute it among your friends, specially if they are in Venezuela. Tell them to send the petition to newspapers and parents' organizations, to political parties and NGOs, and above all, to ask the Venezuelan government to join in. Venezuela is one of the few countries in South America that still are NOT in PISA.

Education and accountability

The countries in white are those countries in South America that still do not take part in the PISA programme. Why are they not there? Simply because they are not interested in accountability.

Do you detect patterns with regards to development, transparency and corruption levels?

Venezuelans, math and words

One, three, two...I have advocated Venezuela's participation in international academic tests. Our country must determine how well it is really doing by comparing its pupils' skills to those of other countries. OECDE's PISA programme is, within its limitations, one of the best tools at hand now. Many other countries are already taking part in that programme. Venezuela is not.

Here you have a graph based on UNESCO's test for math and language skills carried out in Latin America in 1998. That was, as far as I know, the only time Venezuela measure itself up to other nations.

Only Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia were worse off in literacy in South America. Venezuela was at the bottom of South America in math. Cuba was at the top. Perhaps there are good things we can learn about Cuba, even if it is a dictatorship and its economy is in a mess. Could we be curious enough to find out why Cuba was doing so well for Latin American standards? And why Colombia and Chile do much better than Venezuelans?




As a whole, math results are not so great for Latin America. According to Gustavo González, from the IPS, throughout Latin America, "education in language-related subjects such as writing and comprehension is better than in mathematics"
I assume there is a reference to another region if they say "reading is better than maths", or else we actually need to find out how they were comparing math with literacy results, apples with pears. Anyway, we in Venezuela, should have been doing much better if we wanted to develop the technology and other tools we need to be more competitive. How are we now? We do not know. We haven't participated in other studies for Latin America and we haven't taken part in good global studies like PISA.

The latest PISA results have shown Latin American countries are at the bottom of the list of countries participating in the OECD programme. If those countries like Chile and Colombia are at the bottom of OECD academic results for secondary schools and we were at the bottom of South America for UNESCO's test of primary schools in 1998, in what place do you think we would appear if we took part in the PISA programme? Most likely we would be the last of last.

That would be very embarrassing. Still, I believe we must go through it and we must join the club of nations that check their skills with one another and try to learn from that. We need to know where we are and what we must change. If we take part in the PISA programme, we will be able to check how we stand compared to the following countries:


















It is very unlikely that a Venezuelan government will want to participate in PISA. The reasons are obvious to Venezuelans: Results will tell us a lot about the mess we are in and our politicians do not like that. They hate accountability. Results will made us ask questions. Politicians want us to adore them instead. I do not imagine Chavez sacking his brother, the current minister of education. I am afraid that when the Venezuelan opposition gets into power, they would react similarly: let's not put ourselves to public scrutiny, let's not make ourselves too accountable.

Is someone going to prove me wrong? I certainly hope so. I hope one day we Venezuelans as a whole will be top of the class.

To find out more about PISA, go to the Wikipedia article or directly to OECD's PISA results for 2006

Are Venezuelan brains being trained as needed? Part I

I am going to add this data to the set of IDEAS I am writing about sustainable development for Venezuela later on, together with more data I am working with.


PISA NOW!

Venezuela MUST take part in the PISA testing programme. Our government avoids like hell any kind of real accountability on anything including its work on education. This must change. Venezuela must participate in the PISA studies, as other non-OECD countries are already doing.

The first results will show our education levels are disastrous, even for Latin American standards. The education minister must commit himself to raise the position of Venezuela within 3 years. If she or he does not accomplish that, she or he must be sacked.

More to follow...