AUTOMATIC TRANSITION IN THE EARLY CLASSES OF PRIMARY SCHOOL IN ANGOLA: THEORIES, PRACTICES AND CHALLENGES

Abstract

The present work aimed to understand the reasons that inform the discussions around the automatic transition in the initial classes of the learning cycles (1st, 3rd and 5th) of Primary School. Automatic transition has been an innovation in the Education and Teaching System since 2004. It was introduced within the scope of the second educational reform, making use of the constructivist approach that defends assessment at the service of learning, achievable through the diversification of methodological procedures that promote practical inclusive and contextualized educational activities. Another no less important factor was the emergence of learning cycles in extended Primary School, up to the 6th grade. However, contrary to this theoretical perspective that aims at meaningful, integral and inclusive learning in the classroom, the empirical reality captured through reports, experiences, documental and bibliographic consultation, points to evaluative practices predominantly marginal to the teaching-learning process, with recourse to tests. In fact, analytically explored probable explanatory factors of the dissonance between the theoretical perspective and the dynamics of the educational contexts, around the evaluation, whose preliminary conclusions point to the questions of technical and methodological nature as main conditioning factors of the practical incorporation of such methodological procedures that would impact this innovation in the teaching-learning process.