What a shame that Brazil’s relatively new standardized university entrance exam has become mired in problems. Despite the bad rap such tests get – think of the perennial debate over the SAT, or the rote learning associated with China’s all-or-nothing gaokao (“difficult test”) – they can play an important role in promoting mass college access on the basis of merit, regardless of a student’s family background. But to be effective instruments of upward mobility, uniform entrance exams have to gain broad-based credibility, which may be an uphill battle in Brazil thanks to recent events.
As the Chronicle’s Andrew Downie has reported, last year’s revamped exam was the first to be administered on a widespread basis at state universities as an alternative to traditional entrance exams. The old exams, known as vestibulares, were custom-designed by each institution, traditionally included two phases, and required students from outside a campus’s region to travel to take the test. The new multiple-choice exam costs less for students, tests a range of subjects linked to the high-school curriculum (languages, “human sciences,” natural sciences, and math), and has massively boosted application numbers. All federal universities are now using the new “Enem” either as the first part of a two-stage process, or as the sole entrance test.
But the promise of a democratized admissions system at the country’s best universities has been threatened by an escalating series of difficulties that seems to have turned into a full-on debacle. Last year there were security problems – the test had to be delayed after copies of the exam were stolen. And computer glitches led to millions of students having personal data revealed. This year, misprints on the test, which was taken on November 6 by 3.7 million students, initially led to a decision that 20,000 students could retake the exam. Then on November 9 a judge completely annulled the exam results, citing the misprints as well as security flaws — some students took forbidden pencils and watches into exam rooms, for instance. Downie reports that the Education Ministry will appeal the decision.
I hope the mess can be sorted out. As of now, Brazil’s elite public universities present something of a paradox: They are free, which sounds very egalitarian, but in fact they typically admit well-off and well-prepared students who have attended private elementary and secondary schools. Indeed, one reason for the fast growth of for-profit institutions in Brazil is that so many lower- and middle-income students don’t have good access to state universities, notwithstanding assorted admissions quotas based on class and race. A uniform test for students across the nation doesn’t by itself, of course, solve the problem of poor academic preparation in high school. But it does send an important message: all students will have reasonably easy and inexpensive access to the same admissions exam, and all will be judged using the same yardstick. That gives Brazilian schools and students valuable transparency, which is surely the first step toward educational improvement.
