The UNESCO 3rd Regional Comparative and Explanatory Study (TERCE)

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Quality of education is the main pending educational challenge if the six Education for All (EFA) targets are to be achieved by 2015 in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). In this connection, the UNESCO Regional Office of Education for LAC, a.k.a. UNESCO Santiago, in close collaboration with 16 countries, is carrying out the largest comparative study of learning outcomes in the region: the TERCE.

The objective of TERCE is twofold: to assess achievement of learning outcomes in the 16 countries, and to analyse the factors associated with learning achievements, so as to enable the development of evidence-based policy recommendations for improving the quality of education.  To this end, a series of standardized tests in mathematics, language and natural sciences are applied to primary education learners (3^rd and 6^th grade) as well as questionnaires for their families, teachers and school principals. Uniquely, TERCE’s language assessment also includes a writing test, making the only study of its kind in the world to assess writing.

With over 128,000 children and their families, around 10,000 teachers and 3,000 school principals participating, the TERCE also represents a major effort by UNESCO Member States as the exercise has been implemented through national teams, coordinated by UNESCO Santiago. The TERCE has also been supported by various partners, including the Spanish Cooperation (AECID), IADB, Unicef, Grupo Santillana, ETS, IEA, Universities and academia, research institutes and many others, within the LAC region and beyond.

While the TERCE will undoubtedly shed light on how we can improve the quality of education in LAC, thus benefitting millions of children, its results will also guide the post-2015 educational agenda towards quality education without exclusion. Indeed, it will generate data that are crucial to better comprehend the magnitude of the educational challenges facing the region. But the TERCE offers more than just data and policy insights: it is widely recognised as one of the main platforms for informed debate on quality education and its measurement. The activities realised in the course of its implementation, since 2010, have also contributed to developing critical capacities in Ministries and national institutes in educational planning, monitoring and evaluation, through a series of training exercises and targeted interventions.

The findings of the TERCE will be published in early December of this year, in the city of Brasilia. On this day, the attention of the global education community will be once again on the LAC region.