Rankings in education: types, problems, information and changes analysis of the most important Brazilian official rankings

Abstract

This paper classifies the different types of rankings in education, shows the problems that it has been finding and presents contributions to solve them. About the most important Brazilian official rankings it concludes that: (i) the Brazilian Ministry of Education has a different policy with respect to the higher education ranking vis-à-vis the secondary one - in the latter, it estimates the value added and inhibits opportunistic behavior; (ii) the focus in the Enem/Enade results may not imply greater education quality; (iii) the ad hoc choice of the higher education ranking components weights questions its validity; (iv) it is important to provide the confidence intervals of the estimated value added.