Assessment in Education: Principles, Policy & Practice

ISSN: 0969-594X (Print) 1465-329X (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/caie20

The historical development of educational

assessment in Chile: 1810–2014

Jacqueline Gysling

To cite this article: Jacqueline Gysling (2015): The historical development of educational
assessment in Chile: 1810–2014, Assessment in Education: Principles, Policy & Practice, DOI:
10.1080/0969594X.2015.1046812

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 Assessment in Education: Principles, Policy & Practice, 2015
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0969594X.2015.1046812

The historical development of educational assessment in Chile:

1810–2014
Jacqueline Gysling*

Independent Researcher, Santiago, Chile

(Received 30 April 2014; accepted 28 April 2015)

This article examines the historical development of the state’s actions in

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educational assessment in Chile from the nineteenth century to the present day,
based on the analysis of governmental decrees and regulations related to
assessment, and their variability over time. The research identifies six distinctive
periods, each of which expresses a different definition of assessment. In these
six periods, the state consistently used assessment as a policy tool, hence this
phenomenon is not a new or modern one. That much said, the use by the state
of assessment has changed its mode of action and purpose. What is distinctive
about the present is not only the way in which the state controls education
through assessment by demanding the attainment of standards, but also its
underlying educational programme which supports the systemic socialisation and
economic integration of subjects, rather than their social socialisation and
development as citizens.
Keywords: assessment policies; history of education; educational policy

Introduction
As is the case internationally, in Chile, there is growing interest and controversy
surrounding assessment. The frequency and consequences of national standardised
tests (Sistema de Medicion de la Calidad Educativa [SIMCE]) used to evaluate stu-
dent learning has grown as has criticism about the negative effect national testing
has had on the practices adopted within schools (Equipo de Tarea para la Revisión
del Sistema Nacional de Evaluación de Aprendizajes, 2015; Flórez, 2013). The
increased number of standardised tests and their importance at the level of schools
and educational policy can be understood as part of what Broadfoot (2007) coined
the ‘quality agenda’. This approach conceives of assessment not only as a mecha-
nism of control, but also as a parameter of quality with a main role to play in the
system’s management.
The quality agenda is closely related to educational systems organised by market
principles, as is Chilean education since 1980 when an extensive reform transformed
what had been a highly centralised system into a highly decentralised one. Since this
reform, Chile has become an extreme case of privatisation and deregulation (Bellei
& Cabalin, 2013; Carnoy, 2005). In contexts where education is dominated by
market principles, assessment provides data that parents can use to inform their
choice of school for their children and information that can be used by the state to

*Email: jacgysling@uchile.cl

© 2015 Taylor & Francis

 2 J. Gysling

exert indirect control over the system. In the latter case, assessment information
operates as a support for what Elliott (2002) calls an ‘evaluatory state’, meaning that
while not providing the service itself, the state finances it in exchange for compli-
ance to certain quality standards. These standards are then controlled through sys-
tems that assess the service and its results. It is in this manner that national
assessments have taken on a strategic role in the functioning of decentralised and
privatised educational systems, where the state positions itself as a purchaser of
educational services. It is worth noting that while this feature is sometimes associ-
ated with neoliberal policies, it is arguable that this kind of accountability really is
not new in education; what is new is the expectation that learning standards must be
met by all students (Stobart, 2008, p. 118).
In order to deepen our understanding of the current period in education and its
particular features, the present research aims to characterise the state’s policies
regarding assessment by comparing them to previous historical periods and to
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explore the changes in the purposes and forms of state control of education through
the medium of assessment. Specifically, the research analyses the historical develop-
ment of the Chilean state’s actions regarding the assessment process from 1810 to
the present as concerns classroom assessment and national examinations systems.
Following Foucault (1984), in this research, assessment is understood as a social
activity associated with power–knowledge relations between society and individuals.
Assessment dynamics can be understood as localised classroom control practices
and relations between teachers and students but also as complex control practices
involving the school system as a whole. Until recently, the assessment of students,
teachers and schools, as well as the assessment of the educational system and its
policies, were generally viewed as distinct and separate processes, each considered
as an isolated assessment practice with no interconnections between them. Contrar-
ily, following a different current of thought, the present study assumes that each of
these practices can be understood as part and parcel of the same system which is dri-
ven by the state’s assessment policy (Broadfoot, 2007, pp. 63–64). Assessment prac-
tices are related to the way in which the system operates towards students and
individualises them (Foucault, 1984), and also with how the state controls the
educational system and participates in spreading knowledge to society, in the
differentiation of citizens and in social reproduction itself (Bernstein, 2001).
The use of assessment as a mechanism of control can be observed from the
emergence of national educational systems, which some authors see as a vital part
of the organisation of the nation-states itself (Ramirez & Boli, 1987; Ramírez &
Ventresca, 1992). According to this theory, at the time of their establishment, the
purpose of national educational systems was the socialisation of individuals, trans-
forming them into citizens and thereby ensuring adhesion to the political order and
promoting social cohesion (Tenti Fanfani, 2002). Over time, all children were
brought into the educational system, based on the belief that education is a vehicle
for individual and social progress and that education strengthens countries, particu-
larly in the context of political and economic competition between nation-states.
From this perspective since the emergence of national educational systems, there
are five main dimensions of state action in the field of education: provision, funding,
curriculum, assessment and teacher training (Ramirez & Boli, 1987). The way in
which these dimensions of state action are organised demonstrates the extent to
which the system is centralised, centralisation being understood as a variable
characteristic of national education systems regarding the degree of control the
 Assessment in Education: Principles, Policy & Practice 3

centre exercises over the different parts of the system (Archer, 1984, p. 73). In a
highly centralised system, provision and funding are undertaken by the state which
strictly regulates the curriculum, the assessment process and teacher training. At the
opposite pole, in a highly decentralised system, the state continues as a source of
funding alongside others, but private actors are the main providers of educational
services. In this highly decentralised case, curriculum, assessment and teacher train-
ing are minimally regulated and legal rules and regulations have the sole purpose of
maintaining the unity of the system. The degree of centralisation varies between
systems and within one country over time, the latter being the case in Chile.
The initial organisation of an educational system, as well as its development over
time, is not exempt from conflict between those who participate in it. Initially, con-
flict is a matter of who exercises control over the system, while later, conflict and
negotiation are typically about the resources and funding that the state will provide
and the nature of the regulations established by the political centre (Archer, 1984).
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In this context, assessment regulations are a matter of dispute between the various
actors in the educational field, as they provide a very effective way to exercise con-
trol over teaching and learning and over the institutions that provide educational ser-
vices. Put differently, what is at stake in disputes and negotiations about assessment
regulations is the programmatic socialisation of subjects that will be followed.
One important feature of current educational systems is the marked decline of
the programmatic socialisation of subjects (Araujo & Martucelli, 2010; Dubet,
2007). Rather than carrying out an established or predefined programme to this end,
socialisation is now built on the basis of experience, that is according to the way in
which subjects confront and perform on the different examinations that the educa-
tional system requires them to take. It is from this perspective that this article will
argue that at present, assessment is a mechanism of control over individuals and
institutions without any overarching formative project that aims to build citizenship.
While it is true that the quality agenda does invoke the equal right to education, the
notion of education that emerges from assessment policies is now a very narrow one
that focuses on the acquisition of basic skills related to literacy and numeracy. This
is a long way away from the ideals of instruction and moral regulation that first
inspired national educational systems. Current assessment policy favours the sys-
temic socialisation of individuals, that is the distribution of subjects in the social
structure and, hence, of their integration into positions within the work force. Put
differently, current assessment policy has ceased to promote subjects’ social
socialisation as this would require the internalisation of a common culture (Dubet &
Martucelli, 1996), a feature that certainly is not a priority for state assessment
policies at the present time.

Methods
In order to analyse the role of the Chilean state in educational assessment, this
research inquires into two centuries of republican history, seeking to define and
understand these processes as part of the development of the national education sys-
tem. In this analysis, what are reviewed are the rules and regulations concerning
classroom assessment, in other words, assessments carried out by teachers during
the regular course of the academic year and, once they get underway, national
assessments of student learning. The latter are external assessments undertaken by
public agencies or the Ministry of Education that are applied at different points
 4 J. Gysling

during primary and secondary school years and at the very end of secondary
education as a system of selection into higher education.
The research carried out is document-based. All the government decrees that
regulate assessment were compiled (see Appendix 1), analysed and contextualised
using the work of various Chilean educational historians. In Chile, these educational
decrees are mandatory for schools and have a decisive influence on their assessment
practices as they define what must be assessed as well as setting the requirements
for promotion from one grade level to the next.
Based on the premise that assessment is a process that integrates various relation-
ships of power and knowledge, five topics were analysed using categories proposed
by Broadfoot (2007, p. 7) and Santiago (2009, p. 6). The topics were: unit assessed,
purpose, content, mode (how is the assessment carried out?), assessor.
In order to describe the transformations in assessment, historical periods during
which the organisation of assessment adopts specific characteristics were identified.
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These periods were defined by linking the information in the assessment decrees as
regards the unit assessed, the purpose, content and mode of the assessment and the
assessor with the educational context provided by the bibliography of educational
history in Chile. By looking at the different periods, a narrative about the changes in
assessment in Chile and, therefore, about the changes in the purpose and organisa-
tion of the state’s control over education can be constructed. Developing this histori-
cal perspective also provides insight into the state’s actions in assessment at present.

Results
Educational assessment in Chile has varied considerably over the last two centuries,
from pre-modern practices at the beginning of the centralised nation-state system to
the dominant presence of national testing which accompanies today’s neoliberal
state. In what follows, six clearly distinguishable periods of educational assessment
are characterised.

1810–1900: education as a matter of state

The organisation of national educative systems starts in Latin America in the
nineteenth century. In Chile, as in other Latin American countries, the state’s actions
in education in this century took place alongside the creation of fledgling republics
(Egaña, 2000). The newly formed Chilean state brought together the meagre network
of private schools and pre-existing church schools (Serrano, Ponce, & Rengifo, 2012)
with the public educational institutions it founded and created a central entity (the
Ministry of Education and the University of Chile) to lead and supervise the actions
of all these educational establishments. This central entity was in charge of defining
the curriculum, which since then continues to be defined by the state. Oral examina-
tions, the distinctive assessment method of this period, were the foremost instrument
of state control over schools, including the private sector (Aedo-Richmond, 2000) as
they took place in front of external commissions whose members were nominated by
the state. Oral examinations were a characteristic practice of what Madaus and
O’Dweyer (1999) refer to as assessment’s pre-modern period.
At its birth as an independent republic, the Chilean state recognised the right of
private agents to provide educational services and even promoted and financed them
but the curriculum content and the awarding of certificates was controlled and
 Assessment in Education: Principles, Policy & Practice 5

monopolised by the state. In this context, private providers, especially the Catholic
Church, repeatedly claimed their rights to design and implement their own curricu-
lum and to assess students, objecting that a denial of these rights by the state vio-
lated the principle of educational freedom it ostensibly favoured (Núñez, 1986).
Fuelling this dispute were two opposing visions of individuals and society: a more
rational, science-based vision and a catholic, more traditional outlook (Letelier,
1895). This dispute is characteristic of the institutionalisation phase of nation-states’
educational systems (Ramirez & Boli, 1987).
In the nineteenth-century education in Chile was a two-tier system. The first tier
consisted of primary schools and normal schools which were dependent on the
Ministry of Education. Primary education in particular was aimed at the lower
classes and had as its fundamental objective, the teaching of literacy and morality.
The second tier was made up of preparatory schools, secondary schools and institu-
tions of higher education, which depended on the newly formed University of Chile
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and was directed at educating professionals and the bureaucratic elite (Ruiz, 2010).
In spite of involving only a limited number of students (about 4% of total coverage
in 1935), until the middle of the twentieth century, this second tier was pre-eminent
both in terms of how the elite valued it as well as the funding it received (Brunner,
2010).
In this two-tier system, assessment regulations varied in primary and secondary
education. In the case of primary education, examinations had few regulations and
virtually no consequences for the pupils. Examinations at this level permitted the
state to control teachers, who, at the time, had a limited degree of professionalisation
(Egaña, 2000). On the contrary, secondary education was regulated by detailed
guidelines for the examination process (date, composition of the examination board,
duration, consequences) and the criteria for student promotion (Reglamento Instituto
Nacional, 1843 and 1863). It is noteworthy that in secondary education, examination
results took into account the students’ academic performance as well as their beha-
viour and perseverance, thus showing the relevance given, in terms of Bernstein
(2001), to the instructive and regulative dimensions in the education of citizens.
As the nineteenth century advanced, the educational system slowly developed
and examinations began to mark the transition between grades, first in secondary
education (Reglamento del Instituto Nacional, 1863) and later in primary education
(Ley de Instrucción Primaria, 1883). Final examinations in secondary education
awarded the students a certificate or ‘Bachillerato’ which served as a requirement
for university entrance.

1900–1960: the development and socialisation of individuals

In the first half of the twentieth century, important innovations in the educational
field occur in the western world. The creation of the intelligence test started what
Madaus and O’Dweyer (1999) call the ‘modern period’ in assessment. This period
is characterised by the incorporation of the ‘measurement of learning’ concept and
standardised tests applied to whole classrooms simultaneously, a practice which
would later give rise to the multiple-choice test, which allowed for application to
even larger groups. These innovations purported to give a scientific foundation to
the classification and selection of students made by educational systems, making
pedagogy a technical matter and assessment a very specialised kind of knowledge
(Díaz Barriga, 2000).
 6 J. Gysling

In Chile, the first half of the twentieth century witnessed significant institutional
changes in education and what were considered leading pedagogical methods. These
developments started in the early decades of the century with an intense debate on
the direction in which education was headed (Brunner, 2007), the passing of a law
in 1920 making primary education compulsory (Ley 3.654, 1920)1 and a profound
educational reform in 1928 and 1929 (Núñez, 1986). These changes generated a uni-
fied school system bringing together primary and secondary education as sequential.
The theories and methodologies of Dewey and other progressive educators were
incorporated into the system, implying a new type of student–teacher relationship as
well as a new relationship between students and knowledge. These ideas were more
clearly reflected in discourse than they were in every day practice.
Similarly, new assessment approaches were introduced. These changes in Chile
were in keeping with the developments in assessment at an international level. The
influence of Binet and Simon can clearly be seen with the incorporation of
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intelligence testing together with objective tests. However, in Chile, these modern
innovations rooted in psychology and statistics were incorporated alongside the pre-
existing oral examinations, a symbol of the traditional assessment which continued
to be the state’s instrument in controlling public and private schools.
Assessment became more technical in both primary and secondary education
during this period. While in primary education, the regulations continued to be few
and non-specific (Decree 3060, 1929; circular No. 77, 1934), they became very
detailed in secondary education (Decree 6087, 1927; Decree 2545, 1929; Decree
2944, 1944; Decree 1469, 1949 and Decree 842, 1959). The innovations in assess-
ment were related to procedure, the assessors’ judgement and opportunities for
assessments to take place. In these three aspects, a process which was fairer (and
kinder) to students was sought for in an effort to minimise the assessor’s arbitrari-
ness and to focus more on the process rather than the final result. Some specific
innovations of the period were:

• The elimination of corporal punishment, at least in terms of regulations.

• The diversification of assessment instruments as well as increased frequency of
assessment carried out during the school year (and not only at the end).
• The quantification of evaluative judgements as marks that use a numerical
scale and are averaged over a time period in the various subjects studied in the
year.
• A consideration of cognitive and attitudinal factors in adjudicating final grades,
in alignment with the aim of socialising children and offering them a compre-
hensive education.
• The establishment in 1929 of a single examination administered by the University
of Chile, the ‘Bachillerato’, as an entrance requirement to all universities.2

Given the characteristics that assessment adopted, control over individual

development and learning had intensified. In this way, the state strengthened its con-
trol over the process of socialisation, both in its instructional as well as in its regula-
tive dimensions. Moreover, owing to the more objective assessment practices,
results were increasingly connected to individuals’ personal capacities, attitudes and
merit; and pupils were increasingly viewed as personally responsible for their own
success or failure.
 Assessment in Education: Principles, Policy & Practice 7

1960–1973: mass education

The 1960s is characterised by the consolidation of the multiple-choice test as an
assessment tool and its widespread application in the educational system, eased by
the invention of the high-speed optical scanner (Madaus & O’Dweyer, 1999;
Stobart, 2008). These innovations arrived to Latin America in a decade marked by
increased political participation and polarisation and a corresponding effort by
governments to carry out a late modernisation process in order to attempt to reduce
the revolutionary risks.
In Chile, the third period identified in this research started in 1960 and continued
until the military coup of 1973. It saw profound changes in the educational system.
Various proposals that teachers’ organisations and diverse political parties had been
fighting for were adopted (Núñez, 1986). The 1960s educational reform modified
the system’s structure: primary education became universal and its duration was
increased from 6 to 8 years; the curriculum and teacher training were modernised,
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and changes in assessment were made.

Some authors emphasise the democratic spirit behind these changes which
favoured more education for a greater share of the population (Cox, 1986; Núñez,
1990). Others view the reform principally as a step towards modernisation and a
transition from a more traditional society to an industrialised one (Ruiz, 2010).
Notwithstanding their differences, all authors agree that the 1960s educational
reform involved both democratising and modernising features, for example, greater
numbers of students are covered by the educational system but also investigative
aspects of science are now to be found in the curriculum.
Transformations in classroom assessment in this period are based on the ideas of
the active school spread throughout the country since the 1920s and on Bloom’s
approach to learning (Cox, 1986). In keeping with the democratising mood of this
period, the motor behind these changes was inclusion, pupil retention and increasing
the participation of local educational actors. The regulation of assessment was sim-
plified, which could be interpreted as an attempt to lessen the bureaucratic function-
ing of the system and a sign of decentralisation. The major changes in the system
(Decree 11.2017, 1967; Decree 6.859, 1968; Decree 7056, 1967; and Decree 192,
1972) refer to the following points:

• Final examinations were replaced by testing on a local level (Pruebas

Locales). These objective tests were taken at the end of each semester and
were designed by all teachers of a subject or grade at a local authority level.
These local tests modernised the assessment process and empowered the
teaching staff while implicitly establishing a local performance standard.
• Increased attendance and lower academic performance is required for promo-
tion to ensure pupil retention as in other Latin American countries such as
Brazil (Souza, 2009).
• Criteria-based assessment was incorporated and numerical grades were elimi-
nated in primary school from first to fourth grade.
• In the remaining years of school, numerical grades were eliminated for
behavioural matters and promotion was linked exclusively to achievement
(grades) in academic subjects.
• A national test was established at the end of primary education. This standard-
ised multiple-choice test was designed and managed directly by the Ministry
 8 J. Gysling

of Education and was applied with the purpose of guiding the type of sec-
ondary education – general or vocational – students would undertake. Due to
the lack of technical capacity at the time, this test was eliminated in 1972
(Núñez, 1990, p. 130).
• The exam for entrance to higher education (Bachillerato) was replaced by an
academic aptitude test (Prueba de Aptitud Académica [PAA]), which continued
to be controlled by the University of Chile. Initially, the PAA was a multiple-
choice test that evaluated verbal and mathematical aptitude, following the
North American SAT model and in accordance with international trends of the
time (Stobart, 2008).

In this period, under the strong influence of human capital theories (Cox, 1986;
Ruiz, 2010), these profound reforms substantially redefined the mode and purpose
of the state’s control of educational assessment. The state removed itself from
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classroom assessment and of its detailed control of the socialisation of citizens. It

now concentrated on national assessments concerning the future educational and
work-related trajectories of individual subjects.

1973–1980: reversal of the democratisation process

Internationally, the 1970s were not characterised by any particular assessment
innovations. Nevertheless, the emergence of neoliberalism in the United States of
America and England came to have a profound effect on education and the future
role of assessment in school systems. This is certainly what happened in Chile.
In its first years, the Chilean military dictatorship (1973–1990) exercised
complete political control over the population and their ideologies. In a social and
political climate of overt repression, various measures were taken to control the
educational system, including changes in assessment.
The first measures regarding classroom assessment were authoritarian and aimed
to undo features that had favoured educational inclusion and teacher participation.
The requirements for promotion were increased as students’ development was now
viewed as the product of their own personal effort to better themselves (Decree 164,
1974). In addition, the local departments of teachers were eliminated, thus the
Pruebas Locales came to an end. These local tests were replaced by global tests,
intended to measure learning at the end of each semester. From this moment
onwards, assessment is in the hands of isolated classroom teachers and individual
school authorities. This change of direction terminated participation and collective
professional work by teachers; the power they had previously held as agents of stan-
dardised assessment practices abruptly ended. Public control over private schools’
classroom assessment was clearly lost. Consequently, one could say that the classical
conservative aspiration for private actors to be granted autonomous control over
their educational practices had finally been achieved.
Also indicative of this period’s return to conservatism were changes regarding
the national university entrance test. In 1975, the PAA ceased to be a test solely of
academic aptitude, and instead, ‘specific tests’ (Pruebas Específicas) that purport-
edly measured knowledge in academic disciplines were made compulsory. The
underlying vision was a traditional one whereby academic knowledge is valued
above any skills or aptitudes.
 Assessment in Education: Principles, Policy & Practice 9

Finally, the assessment regulations applied between 1973 and 1980 were stricter
in the promotion requirements with the effect of strengthening the selective and mer-
itocratic character of the system.
In conclusion, although the same basic assessment approach that had been
adopted in the 1970s was maintained during this period, namely the objective
assessment of learning outcomes, for the reasons provided above, the democratisa-
tion process that had been undertaken was stalled and in some respects halted. The
very concept of a public education as one controlled by the state had radically
changed.

1980–2000: the educational market and the contraction of public education

The last decades of the twentieth century were characterised internationally by the
end of the Cold War and the consolidation of neoliberalism, a process that had wide-
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spread consequences for society as a whole. In education, the state abandoned its
role as a direct provider of educational services and assumed a role of indirect con-
trol over the system through assessment (Elliott, 2002). Assessments, and specifi-
cally high-stakes tests, were considered a reformer’s tool and became the lynchpin
of accountability systems (Stobart, 2008). At the same time, a critical movement
developed that promoted authentic assessment and urged the recovery of the forma-
tive function of assessment, starting what has been called the ‘postmodern period’
of assessment (Madaus & O’Dweyer, 1999).
This period in Chile is comprised of two opposing political moments: the second
phase of the military dictatorship in the 1980s and the first democratic governments
of the 1990s. Although in political terms, there is a vast difference between the two,
the return to democratic governance did not bring about major changes to the
educational model installed by the military regime during the 1980s.
The transformations that took place in education in the 1980s were part of a radi-
cal rethinking of the state’s actions in society as defined by neoliberal principles:
appreciation of individual freedom as well as that of private agents, anti-statism and
the pre-eminence of the market in the regulation of society (Cox, 1986; Ruiz, 2010).
The changes that were imposed were profound: public schools became the responsi-
bility of local authorities and teachers were no longer directly employed by the cen-
tral state; the creation of private schools was encouraged and public (municipal) and
private schools were financed through a demand voucher. Also, higher education
was restructured: state funding for university education was limited, thus students
now had to finance their own studies; and the creation of private higher educational
institutions was not just permitted, it was very actively promoted.
The state continued to manage the technical regulations of the system, including
the definition of the curriculum, the assessment process and the requirements for ser-
vice providers. These requirements were minimal, allowing considerable flexibility
for decision-making in schools.
During this period, the expansion of public education was suspended and public
funding was reduced from 4.9% of GDP in 1982 to 2.5% in 1990 (Brunner, 2010).
Moreover, spending was restructured: funding was increased in lower levels of
education and was reduced at the higher levels. According to the Presidential
Directive of 1979, the state was the guarantor of primary education in order to form
good workers, good citizens and good patriots. On the contrary, the population itself
was responsible for financing secondary and higher education (Brunner, 2010). In
 10 J. Gysling

primary education, the minimum requirement in curriculum was only basic literacy
and numeracy and schools were authorised to concentrate their efforts solely on
achieving these goals (Decree 4002, 1980).
Assessment saw few changes in the 1980s, although the changes that took place
were important. The year1982 witnessed the creation of the first national assessment
of academic achievement through the Programa de Evaluación del Rendimiento,
which, in 1988, gave rise to the SIMCE, the testing system that continues into the
present. SIMCE tests are national multiple-choice instruments applied to all students
in a level. SIMCE collects information about knowledge in language, mathematics
and also social and natural sciences. It was created with the purpose of informing
parents in order for them to make better decisions when choosing an educational
establishment for their children and to provide information to schools to enable them
to improve their results (Meckes & Carrasco, 2010).
With regard to classroom assessment, in 1985, it was decreed that end-of-year
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examinations were to be reintroduced (Decree 76, 1985). These were written exam-
inations, and if pupils failed them, they were to undergo an oral assessment carried
out by a board of teachers within each school. This measure echoed of the past but
did not imply any real change to the educational model as these examinations were
defined by schools themselves and were not public exercises as oral examinations
had been until the 1960s.
Another sign of this period’s conservatism and even nationalism was the incor-
poration in 1985 of a new obligatory test for university entrance that specifically
measured students’ knowledge of Chilean history and geography, in addition to lan-
guage and mathematics aptitude tests. These changes to the university entrance
examination system took place in the midst of what is arguably an even greater
change. The newly created private universities and higher educational institutions
did not necessarily have to use these entrance examinations because they were
allowed to design their own unique admission systems. Only those universities that
had existed prior to 1980 continued to use this test to select their students. This
change can be viewed as a reduction of state control over students’ educational
trajectories, another aspect of the period’s neoliberalism.
The dictatorship’s actions in transforming the educational system concluded with
a constitutional law (Ley 18.962, 1990 [LOCE]) that established the Ministry of
Education as responsible for writing a national curriculum, assessing the achieve-
ment of these learning objectives and publishing the results. The Ministry of Educa-
tion was not granted the function of directly controlling the quality of education that
schools provide as it was believed that the quality of education would be controlled
naturally through market forces: parents would use the results of national tests to
decide where to send their children to school (Ruiz, 2010).
The return to democracy in 1990 saw the continuation of the educational model
inherited from the dictatorship, although attempts were made to reinstall democratic
practices. Efforts were directed at increasing funding and educational resources in
order to improve quality and make the system more inclusive and equitable.3 In this
context, emphasis was placed on modernising the orientation of the curriculum and
teaching practices, the development of cognitive skills, and more democratic and
supportive relationships were now favoured at the school level, for example, student
councils were reinitiated and inclusion policies re-enacted. Nonetheless, according
to LOCE dispositions, the Ministry of Education continued to apply the SIMCE
national test. Moreover, for the first time in 1995, SIMCE test results were published
 Assessment in Education: Principles, Policy & Practice 11

in a major national newspaper, unsurprisingly creating almost immediately a school

league table. This practice survives till today with many consequences for schools
and the system (Flórez, 2013).
As concerns classroom assessment, rules were and still are minimal. It was estab-
lished that each school must define and regulate its own assessment process and
determine in what way and how often pupils are assessed. The rules which were
established focused on the promotion process: automatic promotion in primary
schools takes place after the first and third grades, while in other grade levels, the
criteria were more flexible, thus favouring promotion and student retention (Decrees
511, 1997 and 112, 1999). These measures coincided with the more inclusive spirit
of the moment, as expressed in polices such as the full school day (1996) and
compulsory education until the age of 17 (2003).
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2000–2014: testing times and accountability

The beginning of the twenty-first century was characterised by the existence of a
globalised educational policy discourse, whereby international tests and their
comparative interpretations played a main role. These tests and the information they
provide are complementary to national test results and together comprise an ensem-
ble of policy that is now profoundly changing the meaning of education (Lingard,
Martino & Rezai-Rashtie, 2013).
The description above well describes Chile, which, as a country, has participated
in international testing (PISA, TIMSS, ICCS) while expanding the SIMCE national
testing system and its consequences for schools. This has been accomplished
through new legislation that created a system of quality control grounded in the
information from national tests. The quality assurance law (Ley 20.529, 2011)
granted the state power to intervene and even close schools, according to the extent
to which standards of learning and other quality standards are being met (like gen-
der equality or school climate), thus radically increasing the control of the state over
schools.
In Chile, the change of millennium was a turning point for the introduction of
the quality agenda in education (Broadfoot, 2007). The SIMCE results of 2000 indi-
cated that the increased resources invested in the system in the 1990s had not pro-
duced the desired learning outcomes. This realisation marked a change of direction
in the educational agenda: now policies were to be clearly directed at improving
student learning, or more precisely, the learning measured by national tests.
One focus of these changes was to align the national curriculum and assessment
so as to ensure coherence in educational policy and to encourage the implementation
of the new curriculum in classrooms. This focus brought with it changes both to the
tests for access to higher education and to SIMCE. University entrance tests were
reformed, eliminating aptitude tests (PAA) and replacing them with a series of tests in
specific subjects (language, mathematics, social and natural sciences) strictly aligned
to the secondary curriculum. After an intense and controversial public debate about
its orientation (e.g. Fontaine, 2002), the PSU (Prueba de Selección Universitaria)
was introduced for the first time in 2003. Initially, this test, like the PAA before it,
was used exclusively by the group of universities which had existed prior to the 1980
reform.4 More recently, eight private universities, all of which were founded after
1980, have been integrated into the system.
 12 J. Gysling

A second set of measures in the quality agenda were directed at SIMCE. In

2002, the Ministry of Education began to elaborate performance standards, the aim
of which was for SIMCE to report levels of achievement. In 2006, for the first time,
reports regarding the SIMCE test taken by 4th-grade students showed not only their
numerical scores, but also the percentage of students found at three achievement
levels, both at the national level and for each school. From that year onwards, the
frequency of application of the 4th-grade SIMCE test increased from once every
three years to every single year.
Moreover, in 2006, a new voucher was approved: the Subvención Escolar
Preferencial is a state subsidy provided to schools for all students who are
categorised as socio-economically vulnerable. Under this law, a new relationship
between the state and educational providers was established: the state does provide
funding, but it does so in exchange for proof of learning results. Standards are
defined to assess student learning and supervise the performance of the schools and
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thus the ‘quality agenda’ continues to exert itself in Chile.

However, in 2006, the educational system was taken by surprise. A mass student
movement arose denouncing the everyday problems of inequality in the system,
which ironically had already been amply evidenced by national test results. Students
demanded profound changes to the institutional organisation of the system. In
response to the students’ demands for the modification of the educational model,
2009 saw the passing of the Ley General de Educación (LGE) replacing the LOCE.
This new law did not modify the structural features students were protesting against.
It continued to permit the mixed provision of educational services, funding through
vouchers, the local authority’s control of public schools and profiteering within the
system. It did, nonetheless, define a quality assurance system that increased the
state’s control over the quality of education by granting it the power to establish
standards and to assess the extent to which learning outcomes and what are called
‘other quality standards’ are achieved.5
Schools are classified into three groups according to the results they obtain
against these standards, with 67% of the categorisation dependent on their achieve-
ment on learning standards and 33% on other quality standards. Schools classified
into the lowest category lose the right to autonomously administer the state subsidy,
are supervised more frequently and can be closed if no improvements are
demonstrated in subsequent years. On the other end of the scale, ‘good schools’ are
granted financial and pedagogical autonomy and are, therefore, exempt from
inspection visits.
The LGE marked a new milestone in the development of the quality agenda with
SIMCE now taking a central role in the state’s regulatory actions via new legislation
at a constitutional level. This, in turn, led to another increase in the frequency, num-
ber of subjects and number of school grades assessed by SIMCE. The year 2011
witnessed the start of the annual assessment of five school grades (in comparison to
only 4th grade previously) as well as the assessment of other curricular areas,
though not for all schools and not on a yearly basis (Ministry of Education, 2011).
Although a sustained effort has been made to align the various student assess-
ments with the curriculum, the national tests only measure certain subjects and
consequently the implementation of the prescribed curriculum has been reduced.
Whilst the national curriculum has maintained its focus on comprehensive education,
the SIMCE and the PSU have concentrated principally on maths and language, and
secondarily on natural and social sciences. Similarly, the acquisition of linguistic
 Assessment in Education: Principles, Policy & Practice 13

and numerical skills and to a lesser extent, scientific knowledge has also prevailed
in the recent definition of teacher training standards, a focus that is moreover rein-
forced by the international assessment systems in which Chile participates. While it
can be argued that the state propounds comprehensive education in its written cur-
riculum, it neither promotes nor seeks to ensure its implementation. This curricular
reduction could be considered symptomatic of the construction of a new type of stu-
dent who needs to be more flexible and adaptable to the unstable employment mar-
ket of the globalised world. The emphasis on more individualistic rather than social
dimensions in education (Dubet, 2010, p. 65) has replaced the student socialised in
the customs and principles of their own society with a student who understands the
basic codes of the modern world and must achieve success using their own personal
will.
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Further discussion and conclusions

On the basis of the results, a first point to underline is that as has occurred in other
countries, assessment in Chile has been used historically as a policy tool by the state
to implement its educative programme, and not just in the present (Broadfoot, 2007;
Gipps, 1999; Kellaghan & Greaney, 2001). Since the beginnings of the national
educational system, the state has determined what and how to assess according to
the priorities defined for the system and the role that the state has defined for itself
in the carrying out of these priorities. Until the middle of the twentieth century, the
state regulated in a highly detailed way the assessment of the elite attending
secondary school to ensure that it was educated according to certain moral and aca-
demic standards. On the other hand, it was more lax in the assessment of primary
students, but also at this level, it valued the instructive and regulative dimensions of
assessment. Either way, in both cases, it was the ‘social socialisation’ of individuals
(Dubet & Martuccelli, 1996) that mattered. Alongside these formative goals, at this
time, the state used assessment to control private schools which were mainly
dependent on the Catholic Church and in particular to subordinate them to the public
educative programme. Additionally, through the national public university
(University of Chile), the state controlled access to public and private universities.
Taken together, all the measures resulted in a highly centralised system.
Some authors have claimed that in Latin America, the decentralisation of the
educational system took place in the 1980s and 1990s (Carnoy, Cosse, Cox, &
Martínez, 2004). However, if the Chilean case is analysed from the point of view of
assessment, as it has been here, decentralisation began earlier, specifically in the
1960s. In this decade, control over private schools through assessment came to an
end, each entity being given the authority to assess their own students. During this
decade, the state also determined the organisation of teachers’ communal groups,
giving these the task of producing the tests that were applied in all the schools in
the district. Alongside this movement towards decentralisation, the state loosened
the regulations for promotion in favour of inclusion and universal access to the sys-
tem, as also occurred at the time in other Latin American countries such as Brazil
(Souza, 2009).
Another important change in the 1960s that became a precursor to the quality
agenda of the 1990s (Broadfoot, 2007) concerned the contents of assessment. In pri-
mary and secondary education, instructional learning became the only dimension
considered for the purpose of promotion. Also, the test for selection to university
 14 J. Gysling

was no longer an examination of specific knowledge acquired during secondary

education but rather became a test of verbal and mathematical aptitude. Similarly,
whereas the older examination required students to write essays to show the extent
and depth of their knowledge, the new instrument was composed only of multiple-
choice questions. Moreover, the first national test between primary and secondary
education was introduced with the purpose of orienting the decision of students to
continue in a vocational or a more academic programme of studies.
All these measures marked the beginning of a fundamental turn in education
from one that was predominantly orientated towards the formation of citizenship
and the strengthening of political organisation and social cohesion, to an education
predominantly centred on the development of human capital to favour economic
development. In this second scenario, the role of the state in assessment concen-
trated on orientating students’ trajectories in relation to their future labour options,
favouring what Dubet and Martuccelli (1996) call ‘systemic socialisation’.
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Another important change in direction was about to take place. The 1980 educa-
tional reform redefined the role of the state in education and was mainly concerned
to privatise education and generate an educational market. In this new context,
assessment was used as a tool to inform demand, that is the parents’ choice of
school. It was likewise assumed that in the face of this public information, schools
would perform better and improve. Later, as it became obvious that the educational
market generates great segmentation and inequity in the system, the state recovered
the power to regulate. Now assessment comes to be used by the state as a quality
control tool, ‘quality’ becoming synonymous with the results on national tests.
These tests thus acquire a fundamental role in the functioning of the system, which
does not change its basic market character but is kept in check and corrected by the
action of a state that has the power to act upon the more unscrupulous suppliers. It
is assumed that the more competition that exists between schools, the better they all
will become.
Chile has been singled out as pioneering national assessments in Latin America
(Kellaghab & Greaney, 2001, Meckes & Carrasco, 2010) and as a case where these
have had a tremendous influence on schools, in contrast to other Latin American
countries such as Argentina, which have avoided this kind of logic (Tenti Fanfani,
2010). Although, over time, the Chilean educational system has been organised fol-
lowing the educational models and dominant ideas imported from more developed
nations, these ideas have been contextualised according to Chile’s own social and
political characteristics and in accordance with the relationships and conflicts present
amongst the educational actors at a local level at the time (Archer, 1984; Beech,
2007). It could be argued that in the case of Chile, the educational market model
met with the principle of educational freedom that over time had been consistently
advocated by the Catholic Church and conservative forces, thus constituting a very
strong quality agenda.
It is noteworthy that in contrast to the 1960s, when the national test was intro-
duced to orient students’ trajectories and the unit assessed was the student him or
herself, the national tests belonging to the quality agenda are only indirectly related
with the students and their learning since the units assessed are the schools. The cur-
rent cognitive priorities in assessment and the lack of concern for students’ personal
development and future trajectories means that education today is a good distance
from the original nation state’s educational programme (Ramirez & Boli, 1987) with
its commitment to socialisation and community. It seems reasonable to assume that
 Assessment in Education: Principles, Policy & Practice 15

the transformations in assessment are indicative of the decline of the institutional

programme of the educational system described by Dubet (2007). Although educa-
tion can be defined as a right, schools are no longer a safe haven, teachers are no
longer conceived to be bearers of sacred knowledge and students must succeed by
themselves and construct their own individual identities throughout their school
careers.
From this standpoint, what is distinctive about the present is not only the way in
which the state controls education through assessment by demanding the attainment
of standards, but also its underlying educational programme that favours the
systemic rather than social socialisation of subjects, a characteristic the ultimate
point of which is economic, not political.

Acknowledgements
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I express my sincere gratitude to Jose Joaquín Brunner, and Ivan Núñez for their helpful
advice during the research; to Mimi Bick for the discussion and her insightful review of the
paper; and to Daniela Sepúlveda for her helpful assistance.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes
1. Although only in the 1960s universal access to primary education was achieved.
2. The ‘Bachillerato en Humanidades’ (Baccalaureate in Humanities) was modified over
time but basically consisted of a series of examinations that assessed knowledge in
diverse areas of secondary education. Initially, these examinations were oral in nature; in
the 1920s, a written essay component (in Spanish and History) was added.
3. Public spending in education increased from 2.5% of GDP in 1990 to 4.1% in 2000.
4. The universities that existed prior to the 1980 reform and those that came into existence as
regional branches of these same universities comprise what is known as the ‘Consejo de
Rectores de Universidades Chilenas’ CRUCH (Council of Chilean University Rectors).
Since 1981, these 17 institutions or ‘traditional universities’ administer a single unified
admission (selection) process. Universities that came into existence after 1981 have their
own systems for selecting students; 8 universities from this group were recently incorpo-
rated into the unified CRUCH national system.
5. The other 10 quality standards evaluated are: (a) academic self-esteem and motivation,
School atmosphere and life, Participation, citizenship and Habits for a healthy life, which
are assessed according to information gathered by SIMCE through questionnaires
answered by students, teachers, parents and guardians; (b) attendance, retention and
obtainment of technical-professional degrees calculated using data collected from the
Ministry of Education and the Quality Assurance Agency registers; (c) equality between
genders as evidenced in SIMCE test results each year; and (d) SIMCE scores and trends
calculated on the basis of SIMCE results.

Notes on contributor
Jacqueline Gysling is a professor of Sociology of Education in the Department of Pedagogic
Studies, Faculty of Philosophy and Humanities, at the University of Chile. Her research inter-
ests include teacher education, curriculum and assessment. Between 2006 and 2010, she was
the head of the curriculum team at the Ministry of Education of Chile in charge of the
national curriculum frameworks and syllabuses. Currently, she is a PhD student at the
University Diego Portales, Chile and Leiden University, Netherlands. Her recent publications
 16 J. Gysling

include: Evaluación para el aprendizaje en la Unidad de Currículum y Evaluación del

Ministerio de Educación 2002–2010 [Assessment for learning in the unit of curriculum and
assesment at the ministry of education 2002–2010], ¿Qué se evalúa cuando se evalúa? Una
experiencia de formación docente en Evaluación para el aprendizaje [What is assessed when
the assessment take place? A experience of teacher development in assessment for learning]
(2012) and Estándares y regulación de la calidad de la formación de profesores: Discusión
del caso chileno desde una perspectiva comparada [Standards and teacher education regula-
tion: discussion of chilean case from a comparative perspective]. Calidad en la educación.
Revista del Consejo Nacional de Educación (2011).

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Appendix 1. List of decrees ruling assessment in Chile

1843. Statute of the National Institute (the most important high secondary institution at the
time).
1863. Statute of the National Institute.
1883. Law of Primary Instruction.
1927, Decree 6087. Statute of Secondary Education exams.
1929, Decree 2545. Statute of Secondary Education grades and exams.
1929, Decree 3060. General statute for Primary Education.
1934, Official Memo 77. About exams and another final activities and about planning the
next school year.
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1944, Decree 2944. Statute of exams and promotion for secondary education pupils.
1949, Decree 1469. Statute of exams and promotion for secondary education pupils.
1959, Decree 842. Statute of grades, exams and promotion for secondary education pupils.
1961, Decree 1480. Statute of grades, exams and promotion for secondary education pupils.
1966, Decree 11,207. State regulations for assessment and promotion for seventh grade
pupils of Basic General Education.
1967, Decree 7056. State regulations for assessment and promotion for eight grade pupils of
basis general education and for the certification.
1968, Decree 6859. State regulations for assessment and promotion for eight grade pupils of
basis general education and for the certification.
1972, Decree 192. Regulations for assessment and promotion of basic education pupils.
1974, Decree 164. State regulations for assessment and school promotion.
1978, Decree 2038. State regulations for assessment and school promotion.
1979, Decree 2088. State regulations for assessment and school promotion.
1983, Decree 62. State regulations for assessment and school promotion.
1985, Decree 76. State regulations for assessment and school promotion.
1988, Decree 146. Statute of school assessment and promotion for pupils of basic general
education, secondary education and adult education, and certification process for vocational
education.
1997, Decree 511. Statute of school assessment and promotion for boys and girls of primary
education.
1999, Decree 112. Regulations for the elaboration of the schools’ statute of assessment and
regulations for the promotion of first and second grade high school pupils.
2001, Decree 83. Statute of grades and promotion for third and fourth grade high school
pupils, and regulations for the elaboration of the schools’ statute of assessment.