Challenges for subnational governments in Brazil while using national assessment results in the development of educative policies

Abstract

The goal of this paper is to study how subnational governments are using the outcome of the Elementary Education Assessment System (saeb for its Portuguese acronym), an education assessment process carried out by Brazil’s Federal Government. For this purpose, we’ve chosen the government of the Federal District, Brasilia, Brazil’s capital city. Within this administration, we’ve chosen the Ministry of Education, an entity that manages elementary education. Results show that managers in that Ministry believe in the importance of national assessment such as saeb . However, the knowledge produced by this entity is not used in the development of policies, and this seems to have a strong connection with two main issues: inability to fully understand the outcome of the assessment and management practices that are focused on merely operative aspects.