In 2024, the Ministry of Education (MINEDUC) evaluated 146 thousand 833 graduates in mathematics and reading. Despite an improvement in the results, lags persist and the achievement levels registered before the COVID-19 pandemic are not yet reached.
The evaluation was online and covered students from the public, private, municipal and cooperative sector, with greater presence in the rural area, where most establishments are concentrated that teach medium level.
Since the graduates began to be evaluated, in 1998, mathematics is the area in which students have shown greater deficiencies. The 2024 results confirm it: Only 12.9% had a performance between satisfactory and excellentindicating that their skills and knowledge are consistent with the educational stage they study. In contrast, 87.1% did not reach an adequate level.
Despite this, an improvement of 2.8% is reported compared to 2023, whose result was 10.1%. However, the data remains below what was reached in 2022, when 14.1% of the graduates achieved a satisfactory or excellent level of performance, the best record in the numerical area in the last decade.
In 2024, San Marcos and Chimaltenango were the departments with the best results in mathematics, with 23% and 22%, respectively. In contrast, Jutiapa (4%), Zacapa and Santa Rosa (both with 5%) were among the least performance.
In the Reading Area, the Report of the General Directorate of Educational Evaluation and Research (Dideduca) of the MINEDUC indicates that 35.53% of the students reached an achievement level, Which means that 64.47% presented unsatisfactory or improvement performance.
The data reflects slight progress, since in 2023 the percentage of achievement was 31.73% and in 2022, of 30.82%.
The departments with the highest level of achievement in reading are Sacatepéquez, Chimaltenango and Guatemala, in that order, with results greater than 40%. At the opposite end are Jutiapa, Santa Rosa, Izabal, Retalhuleu and Zacapa, with percentages below 25%.
Pandemia effect
The Covid-19 Pandemia marked a watershed in education. The interruption of the face -to -face classes led to the suspension of graduate tests in 2020. In 2021, it worked under a hybrid mode – virtual and face -to -face -, which prevented establishing comparisons with evaluations of previous years. For that reason, there are no data from those two years.
Before that pause, the results of the evaluation to students of the last degree of diversified showed a tendency to improve. In mathematics, the greater growth was recorded in 2019, with a result of 13.60%while in 2018 it was 11.40%; that is, an improvement of 2.2 percentage points was observed. In the case of reading, the best result was reported in 2018, with 34.81% achievement, 2.48 points more than 32.33% reached in 2017.
Analysts in Education have indicated that the suspension of face -to -face classes and the adoption of distance modality affected learning at all levels and in different sectors. Nevertheless, The impact was greater on those who did not have access to connectivity.
By sector and career
Graduate evaluation covered 4,716 establishmentsof which seven out of ten were private schools, confirming that the public sector maintains greater educational coverage at the diversified level.
According to Digeduca, Baccalaureate and Expert information were the teaching branches with the highest number of students evaluated, with 69% and 24%, respectively. They were also what rand support higher levels of achievement in mathematics, with 15% and 13%. The lowest result was obtained by the students of the Secretariat career, with 4%.
In the reading area, The best evaluated were expert students (38%)followed by Baccalaureate (35%), Magisterium (32%) and, again, secretariat, with the lowest level of achievement (28%).
Ester Ortega, an education and ex-agrees of educational quality, considers questionable that there is an improvement in the results of graduate tests, since the suspension of face-to-face classes because of the Pandemia of the COVID-19 affected student performance, and the diversified was no exception.
In addition, he points out that the fact that the test has been fully performed online does not allow the results to be comparable between years. Therefore, it cannot be said with certainty that graduates have had a better performance in 2024.
Ortega indicates that reinforcing in graduates the contents included in the tests would contribute to improving the results. It also considers it essential that lOs supervisors visit educational establishments to ensure that teachers impart the contents of the national base curriculum.
Closely
The results of the graduate evaluation also allow to identify characteristics of the student that can influence their academic performance.
- 29% repeated at least one degree during their school career
- 91% attended at the preprimary level
- 80% like to read
- 71% indicated having a computer
- 68% Internet access
- 43% of graduates said they shared their study time with work activities.
- 73% of young people were 18 or less at the time of evaluation.