What can the pandemic outbreak teach us about external learning assessment?

Abstract

The Covid outbreak forced the portuguese education system to change and to assume priorities. In particular, the importance of learning external assessment (LEA) was put in to focus. This research intends to know what the narratives of context of the agents are (the education in times of pandemic), what positions they take about the LEA and with what justification. Given the nature of the questions, is inscribed in the interpretive paradigm, with a mixed approach and in the case study modality, using document analysis of public records. The results are discussed in contrast with other scientific data and with the political decisions adopted due to the Covid19 outbreak. They suggest that the LEA for access to higher education gains the status of learning purpose and that this contributes to important dissonances: the agents assume narratives to promote social equity and adopt measures with the potential to minimize it. In conclusion, we consider that other decisions could have been taken (we present examples) and that the change process would have benefited from a period of reflection oriented towards the coherence between needs, resources and knowledge.