THE ELIMINATION OF EVALUATION IN PRIMARY BASIC EDUCATION: TOWARDS A COMPLEX EDUCATIONAL PARADIGM FOCUSED ON THE ENHANCEMENT OF MULTIPLE INTELLIGENCES

Abstract

This essay analyzes the crisis of the evaluation system in primary education in Colombia, with an emphasis on the city of Cúcuta as a border context. It argues that traditional evaluation processes, based on standardization and reductionist measurement, have generated an obsolete model that ignores the cultural, social, and cognitive diversity of students. This practice has led to inequity and exclusion by privileging homogeneous academic performance over holistic development. Based on the complex thinking of Edgar Morin, it is evident that evaluation cannot continue to reduce the richness of learning to simple grades. Likewise, based on Howard Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences and the contributions of Vygotsky, it is recognized that each student has differentiated potentials that must be valued in their context. The influence of Boaventura de Sousa allows us to understand traditional evaluation as a form of epistemic violence that renders other forms of knowledge invisible. As an alternative, the Complex and Multiintelligent Educational System (CMES) is proposed, aimed at replacing the traditional paradigm with an approach that promotes interconnectedness, autonomy, and recognition of the multiple dimensions of intelligence. This model seeks not only to transform evaluation but also to redefine education as a comprehensive formative process, capable of addressing the specificities of vulnerable contexts such as Cúcuta. It is concluded that overcoming the evaluation crisis requires abandoning a simplistic view and adopting a paradigm that integrates complexity, diversity, and educational justice. Evaluation must become a dialogical, critical, and transformative process that recognizes the student as an active learner and the teacher as a mediator in the construction of knowledge.