The Project for Improvement of Rural Education (PROMER, for its acronym in Spanish) has among its objectives "to develop the coverage, efficiency, and quality of the educational system of Argentina", mainly in rural areas. To achieve this, the constant evaluation of the plan is essential for their progress. However, a report by the Audit General’s Office (AGN for its acronym in Spanish) detected that the system responsible for this task "it’s basically impossible for it to measure the program’s impact by looking at how it was designed”.

However, to estimate the progress of the project a matrix was established with a set of specific indicators. Each baseline and annual goals are registered. But on this point the auditors also found serious irregularities in the fact that "the system of indicators changed substantially, both in number and in scope, as well as in accuracy, so they can no longer be compared with each other and therefore hinder the management evaluation." In terms of quantity seven were detected first, then 11, and finally there were four.

One of the examples cited in the report, which was published in June this year, was the indicator measuring school over-age, "which was discarded because the project was not expected to have any impact on this issue, on short or medium term." However, it was one of the most alarming problems before the enactment of the Law on Education in 2006, it was within the educational objectives of the Bicentennial (to be achieved by 2010) and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD, for its acronym in Spanish) had alerted on the subject and requested that the issue be attended to.

AGN states that the inability to compare data, "affects one of the objectives of PROMER" the final evaluation to align both the National Government and the IBRD on future policies". It is important to remember that this entity is who granted a loan of $150 million dollars to the Ministry of Education to carry out the project.

To this inability to measure the program’s progress we must also add the fact that "the design of the Monitoring and Evaluation System doesn’t allow an account of the contributions to be kept. Consequently, the scope that was achieved in the pursuit of goals can’t be perceived”. In addition, the watchdogs felt that the project "doesn’t adapt to the contributions that external factors can provide”, such as the implementation of the Universal Child Allowance.

What happens in the provinces?

At the time of the initial planning for PROMER it was "expected" that the different jurisdictions would actively participate in the formation and validation of the information. But with the development of the program the truth was left out in the open when "problems and limitations" were discovered. Indeed, it was the National Directorate of Information and Evaluation of Educational Quality the agency "in charge of managing the system of indicators of the project and generate reports that analyze the management." Meanwhile, the provinces "suffered a minimization of their duties."

For the AGN "this centralization resulted in risks and warnings that had been stated during the program’s design stage", i.e., "that the lack of participation of the provinces would delay the implementation of the program". Just the IBRD had identified this as a risk and had developed a component aimed at strengthening education management. But in the process of modifying some indicators "some became disregarded, for example, the availability of educational statistics."

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The installment of an online geographic information system had been foreseen. While the Audit qualifies it as "an unprecedented breakthrough in data visualization, it has its drawbacks since its limited when it comes to accessing educational statistics of schools". It’s that "the available data are limited to tuition and only if the request is done by IBRD and are processed at a department and grouping level".