Centrally-Mandated Testing Systems in the Neoliberal Educational Reform: Contradictions and Tensions of the Argentine Experience

This article analyzes how official evaluation policies applied to the instructional system implemented in Argentina during President Menem’s administration in the 1990’s served a neoliberal educational agenda. It also displays the contradictions of that agenda.

To do so, the article briefly explores the evolution and the expansion of central testing systems applied to education in North America, which inspired Argentine educational reform. Then, it reviews the diagnostic, discourse and recommendations of two international organizations whose influence was decisive in the last waves of educational reforms in Latin America: ECLAC and the World Bank. Third, after offering a working definition of the neoliberal doctrine applied to the education terrain, the paper exemplifies how this doctrine was turned into practice in the Argentine case. The intention is to emphasize how these new premises have changed the pre-existent modem educational discourse, politics and policies. Fourth, to illustrate the inclusion of the doctrinal principles of the neoliberalism, the paper focuses on a pivotal aspect of Argentina’s recent educational reform derived from the World Bank’s recommendations: the administrative and financial decentralization, which is considered as the counterpart of central evaluation. Finally, the article concludes by highlighting some unsolved tensions generated by these measures as lessons to take into consideration by the policymakers and educational planners.