Acing the test: Educational effects of the SaberEs test preparation program in Colombia

ECONOMICS OF EDUCATION REVIEW
Publicado: 
Authors:
Estefanía Saravia,
Pablo Uribe
Clasificación JEL: 
A21, D04, I21, I24, I28

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María Teresa Ramírez-Giraldo, Karina Acosta, Olga Lucia Acosta Navarro, Lucia Arango-Lozano, Fernando Arias-Rodríguez, Oscar Iván Ávila-Montealegre, Oscar Reinaldo Becerra Camargo, Leonardo Bonilla-Mejía, Grey Yuliet Ceballos-Garcia, Luz Adriana Flórez, Juan Miguel Gallego-Acevedo, Luis Armando Galvis-Aponte, Luis M. García-Pulgarín, Andrés Felipe García-Suaza, Anderson Grajales, Daniela Gualtero-Briceño, Didier Hermida-Giraldo, Ana María Iregui-Bohórquez, Juliana Jaramillo-Echeverri, Karen Laguna-Ballesteros, Francisco Javier Lasso-Valderrama, Daniel Márquez, Carlos Alberto Medina-Durango, Ligia Alba Melo-Becerra, María Fernanda Meneses-González, Juan José Ospina-Tejeiro, Andrea Sofía Otero-Cortés, Daniel Parra-Amado, Juana Piñeros-Ruiz, Christian Manuel Posso-Suárez, Natalia Ramírez-Bustamante, Mario Andrés Ramos-Veloza, Jorge Leonardo Rodríguez-Arenas, Alejandro Sarasti-Sierra, Bibiana Taboada-Arango, Ana María Tribín-Uribe, Juanita Villaveces
Wilmer Martinez-Rivera, Manuel Darío Hernández-Bejarano

Education in Colombia and Latin America is characterized by significant gaps in the quality of education as measured by standardized test scores. This paper assesses the impact of a Colombian program called SaberEs, which strengthens preparation for standardized cognitive tests such as the high school exit exam in Colombia (Saber 11) for low socioeconomic status students. The program provides competency-based training sessions to develop skills for analyzing and solving specific types of questions within school hours. Our difference-in-differences estimates show that SaberEs increased Saber 11 scores by 2.22 ranks (or 0.074 standard deviations), which implies that the socioeconomic achievement gap was reduced by 23% regarding the control schools. Also, students affected by the program experienced a significant increase in access to tertiary education and merit-based scholarships in Colombia.