Os testes nacionais como instrumento de ação pública no sistema educativo Português: Processos de “problematização” e de “preconização”

Abstract

In Portugal, standardized external tests have been an instrument of a new form of regulation of education by the State, focused on results, which allows the educational system to be monitored, regulating schools and teaching activity regarding educational objectives, pedagogical practices and assessment, and curriculum management. Based on documentary research of political texts, in this article we describe the standardized external evaluation of non-higher education students in the last decades, and we analyze the State's intervention in this domain, based on implicit "problematization" and "preconization" processes. Taking as a starting point the globalized phenomenon of testing, in secondary education, regardless the ideology of the governments, the choice of the instrument (national exam) has been conditioned by a same imperative: the 'selection' in access to higher education. However, in basic education, it was possible to detect divergences in terms of ‘problematizations’ and ‘preconizations’, which support the choice of assessment instruments (gauging tests, intermediate tests) that reveal two regulatory options that can be endorsed by both ideological affiliations – center-right-wing and center-left-wing –which have been successful in educational administration.