Evaluation of the quality of education in the Public Universities of Mexico. Foundations, critique and proposal (Atena Editora)

Abstract

In the case of Mexico, educational policies in general, and in particular, those aimed at the University subsystem, must be aimed at preparing the country and its inhabitants to respond to the new challenges posed by 21st century society, and among the latter is the need to improve the quality of education. The present work studies the theoretical foundations around the evaluation of the educational quality in the Public Universities of Mexico (UPM), using as a base the specialized literature in the reference topic. After a review of various evaluation perspectives, the document builds a methodological synthesis exercise on the evaluation process in Mexico, from which some critical elements of said scheme are established and, finally, an outline of a proposal is formulated. for the evaluation model of the PSUs, where it is suggested that evaluation must become an effective means for quality assurance and accountability. Thus, the current document highlights the consideration of the following formal foundations for the evaluation of educational quality in UPMs: 1) Quality assurance; 2) accountability; and, 3) the establishment of an autonomous evaluation institution. Around this last point, the proposal that is configured in this essay points towards the formation of a State Evaluation Institution with administrative and financial autonomy, as well as political independence, which performs academic evaluation as an instrument of accountability. And the feasibility of the proposal is found in the same rendering of accounts, since it is, in itself, an option for a technological solution to the asymmetric information that exists between citizens and their representatives.