What is the INEE?

The Instituto Nacional para la Evaluación de la Educación (INEE: National Institute for Educational Assessment and Evaluation) was created on August 8th, 2002, through a presidential mandate, to satisfy the social request of having a technically solid and independent organism, which would conduct reliable and transparent assessments of the National Educational System.

It's fundamental aim is to produce a reliable knowledge of the quality of the National Educational System, including students' learning.
Educational assessment is not an end in itself. It is a means to improve education, since a better knowledge of the condition in the system gives way to establishing stronger foundations in order to design convenient strategies to improved instruction.

INEE’s Mission

Throughout the course of its first years, INEE’s mission became more and more accurate, so that the official definition in force was finally formulated. It is found on the Plan Maestro de Desarrollo 2007-2014 (Development Master Plan) approved by the Board of Directors in November 2006. It states that:
The Instituto Nacional para la Evaluación de la Educación will contribute to the improvement of education in Mexico through integral assessments of the quality in the educational system, its determinant factors, as well as through the transparent and timely diffusion of its results in support of decision-making, teaching improvement in schools, and accountability.

INEE’s Functions

The Institute’s project is based on an accurate definition of quality education –one which is relevant, internally and externally effective, one which has a positive impact in the long term, and is also efficient in the use of resources, and one which is equitable as well. INEE’s assessment mechanism should cover all the federal states in the Mexican Republic, and all the modes of the educational service.
The functions carried out by the INEE take place in three basic areas: quality indicators for the national educational system and state subsystems; learning tests; and evaluations of school resources and processes.

INEE's Boards

The INEE includes three boards where authorities, specialists, and representatives of important actors in the educational system take part in a balanced way. These collegiate groups are the Board of Directors, the Technical Council, and the Advisory Council.
The Board of Directors is the top direction body. It is responsible for the key decisions related to the operation of the Institute. It is composed of 15 members. Among these we find representatives of parents, entrepreneurs, teachers, and high officers of public institutions linked to the Institute’s activities.
The Technical Council seeks to establish the technical guidelines which will direct INEE’s work; to discuss and determine the quality of assessment tools used by the Institute, and to technically and academically assess the reports delivered. It is composed of 16 prominent Mexican and foreign experts in the assessment and educational research fields.
The plural composition not only of the Board of Directors but also of the Technical Council, has allowed INEE to operate with great independence.
The Advisory Council is composed of assessment and evaluation areas of each of the 32 Mexico's State education authorities. It works as a link to strengthen the cooperation with federal and local education authorities.

Executive Structure

The coordination of activities carried out by the INEE is based on the following executive structure:

Additional information

In this Website, the Institute makes various sections available to the public in Spanish, with a comprehensive information on assessment outcomes, as well as the results of the INEE’s studies, research, projects, and in general, of all its activities. Among the contents one can find the following:

Publications

One of the mechanisms used by the Institute to achieve the spreading of its work is the publication of its research production. This site exhibits the published products offered by the INEE to school principals, teachers, parents, and to all those people interested in education-related issues. These products may not only be consulted, but they can also be printed through the Website.
The publishing program of the Institute is made up of the following:

a) Official documents.
b) Institutional reports.
c) Results of investigation.
d) Spreading texts.
e) Other evaluation texts.
f) Technical documents.
g) Coeditions.

Databases

These databases contain the statistical information from the different assessments carried out by the Institute or those in which it takes part. The INEE makes them available to researchers and general public for them to do their own analyses. With due care of individuals´ and schools´ privacy rights each base includes achievement outcomes and context questionnaires.

Some of the databases which can be consulted are the following:

a) EXCALE-00 for 3rd kindergarten. Cycle 2006-2007
b) EXCALE-03 for 3rd grade of primary education. Cycle 2005-2006
c) EXCALE-06 for 6th grade of primary education. Cycle 2004-2005
d) EXCALE-09 for the 3rd year of secondary education. Cycle 2004-2005
e) PISA 2003
f) PISA 2006
g) Estándares Nacionales (National Standards). Cycles 2002-2003, and 2003-2004

Excale Explorer

This electronic tool allows teachers, principals, supervisors, decision-makers, authorities, and all of the educational sector actors to explore the contents included in the tests developed by the Institute, Exámenes de la Calidad y el Logro Educativos (EXCALE: Educational Quality and Achievement Tests). Excale Explorer allows to find out what kinds of skills and knowledge are assessed by these learning tests, their insertion in the national curriculum, the cognitive significance of learning a particular subject area, the kind of questions used, and the difficulty posed by the content to the different groups of students in the national educational system.

Tablas Estadísticas INEE (TEI: INEE Statistical Tables)

This is a search service known as the Buscador de Tablas Estadísticas del Instituto Nacional para la Evaluación de la Educación (Statistical Tables Searcher of the National Institute for Educational Assessment and Evaluation). Its aim has been to specifically search information and educational indicators in order to introduce integrated results showing the different factors involved in education assessment.

Public panels

One can consult the discussions and presentations performed by specialists and researchers having participated in the different public panels periodically organized by the INEE, in order to publicize its assessment results. Two hundred to eight hundred people attend these panels, depending on the themes reviewed and the place where these panels take place.