Universidad Mayor

Facultad de Educacin
Pedagoga en Ingls para Educacin Bsica y Media

Argumentative Essay

Estudiante:

Tamara Garca Monrdez

Profesora:
Daniela Ubilla Bravo

2015
 Filters help to improve the quality of Education

Nowadays, a very controversial topic is whether education graduates should take a

compulsory test for qualification before exercising as teachers. This test is called Evaluacin
Inicia. According to the Ministry of Education, the objective of this evaluation is to identify the
disciplinary and pedagogical knowledge reached by the graduates of a pedagogy career, with the
purpose of providing information about the quality of their initial training to start his practice.
The importance of this evaluation, is that if we, as teachers, give the test, we will know if we are
capable to give the necessary contents to our students, and if we have low results, we can take
courses to improve ourselves, and in that way give the students a better quality of Education.

It is obvious to say that to ensure quality, it is necessary to have good teachers. But today,
we are caught in a vicious circle where a child studying in an inefficient school, is a young man
who in the future will have bad results in the PSU because the school did not have the necessary
tools to teach, who then by a discard will enter a program of easy access, and finally will be an
adult with few job opportunities, due to the fact that he did not chose the course because he liked
it, but because he reached the score to enter.

According to data on Education 2020 (2013), the education programs with little or no
selectivity increased by 593% between 2000 and 2008. To this is added that 30% of the
pedagogy programs are not accredited. So we can say that the education received by future
teachers and the selection of these to enter a course is not quality. But one of the ways to change
this problem is to improve the initial teacher training and setting filters for better teachers, in
order to improve the training of future teachers, change the perspective that people have about
studying education and as a result make of pedagogy a challenging career with good pay.

A clear example are the countries like Finland, Singapore, South Korea, among others,
which have a minimum of 3 tests or filters from the college selection process onwards.
According to the Finnish National Board of Education,

In Finland the quality of education and training are seen as a key factor related to
the efficiency and excellence of education as well as the equality of individuals.
Quality assurance in Finland comprises the quality management of education
providers, the national steering of VET and external evaluation
 This means that in Finland the education is given more importance than in our country,
just for the fact that in Finland is a requisite that all teachers need to have a Masters degree, and
that the continuous training in teachers is directly related with the high quality of education.

Another example is Singapore, that according to the Center on International Education

Benchmarking,

Singapore recruits its teachers from the top third of high school graduates. Each
year, Singapore calculates the number of teachers it will need, and opens only that
many spots in the training programs. On average, only one out of eight applicants
for admission to their teacher education programs is accepted, and that only after
a grueling application process. Those who are accepted have typically not only
taken Singapores A-level exams (the most challenging of all the exams available
to Singapore students) but will have scored at least in the middle of the score
range, a very high level of accomplishment.

This means that in Singapore are very selective with the teachers who will be accepted
and one way to know who is the best to be a teacher, they need to take a test and according to the
results the ministry is going to choose the best candidates.

While in our country, the test is applied since 2008, but it is neither mandatory nor
necessary to practice. This test evaluates graduates of early childhood education and pedagogy,
which measures the domain of materials and skills of teachers to teach. However, nowadays it
has no impact on who takes the test, nor the institution that trained the teacher. But it has been
trying to change that, and the Congress is handling changes in the Prueba Inicia that may
directly affect the quality of education.

In contradiction with this opinion, Oscar Espinoza, Dante Castillo y Manuel Alzamora
(p.69) states that one critic they make, is that this assessment is focused only to measure the
knowledge and the cognitive domains of students in the area of education and pedagogy, but not
have the same strength to determine and/ or display professional performance. On this particular
aspect, it should be noted that a good result in this test of expertise and therefore a good position
in the ranking, does not in any way ensure a good professional performance.
 What Education 2020 (2013) proposes is to have at least two essential filters: the first, is
to have a selection test, which besides of establishing a highest criterion selection, should
implement a special test as is already done in other careers like Psychology . The idea is to select
only candidates who have the talent and vocation. The second filter would be to have the Inicia
test, in which students, after graduating from the teaching career, should take a mandatory test of
teaching knowledge and expertise that will enable them to practice in all schools subsidized by
the state (public and subsidized schools).

So in conclusion the test results should affect in the accreditation of higher education
institutions, besides of forcing the universities to respond strengthening if they fail, and to be
public for the students, the educational institution, and who hired the teacher (a), because having
good teachers and nursery teacher is essential in order to improve the quality of our education.
For this it is necessary to have a filter that can measure if the teachers of our country are up to
the measure of quality.
 REFERENCES

Center on International Education Benchmarking. Teacher and Principal Quality. Retrieved

from

http://www.ncee.org/programs-affiliates/center-on-international-education-

benchmarking/top-performing-countries/singapore-overview/singapore-teacher-and-

principal-quality/

Educacion 2020 (2013). Qu es la Prueba Inicia y por qu es importante?. Retrieved from

http://www.educacion2020.cl/que-es-la-prueba-inicia-y-por-que-es-importante

Oscar Espinoza, Dante Castillo y Manuel Alzamora. (p.69). Evaluacin de la calidad de la

Educacin Superior en Iberoamrica. Retrieved from http://www.cie-ucinf.cl/download/cap

%C3%ADtulos_de_libros_del_cie/Capitulo%20Fundamentos,%20alcances%20y

%20resultados%20de%20la%20Prueba%20INICIA%20-%20Espinoza%20Castillo.pdf

Finnish National Board of Education. Quality assurance and evaluation. Retrieved from

http://www.oph.fi/english/education_development/quality_assurance_and_evaluation

Ministerio de Educacin. Evaluacin Inicia. Objetivos y Contenidos de las Pruebas. Retrieved

from http://www.mineduc.cl/index2.php?

id_seccion=4245&id_portal=79&id_contenido=20559