AVANZO

Overview

AVANZO is El Salvador's national standardised learning-evaluation test for secondary education, run by the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (MINEDUCYT). It replaced PAES (Prueba de Aprendizaje y Aptitudes para Egresados de Educación Media), the exam Salvadoran students had sat at the end of secondary school for more than two decades, after MINED announced in 2020 that PAES would end and be replaced by AVANZO. Unlike a one-off pass/fail exit exam, AVANZO is designed as a learning-evaluation tool: it measures what students have achieved against the national curriculum and feeds a weighted share of the student's final-year academic grade, alongside a diagnostic, non-graded look at English proficiency and socio-emotional skills.

Who can apply

AVANZO is not an optional exam a student applies for — it is a mandatory evaluation for everyone enrolled in the second (final) year of bachillerato (upper-secondary education) at a school registered with MINEDUCYT, in both the general academic and technical-vocational modalities. Sitting it is a requirement, under El Salvador's General Education Law, for a student to receive their bachillerato (high-school) certificate. Students who cannot sit the test in a planned window — for example because of a documented access or health issue — are offered a later makeup sitting.

Exam pattern

The four weighted subjects are usually split across two consecutive days (for the 2025 sitting, Pre-calculus and Citizenship and Values were held on one day, Science and Technology and Language and Literature on the next). AVANZO is delivered online through MINEDUCYT's evaluation platform: students log in with their institutional clases.edu.sv account (username based on their NIE student ID number) and a password sent to that account, and in recent cycles have sat the test either at their school, under staff supervision, or remotely from another location with an internet connection, depending on the year's arrangements. A physical, paper-based version is provided for blind students, students in correctional facilities, and other cases MINEDUCYT identifies in advance.

Marking and results

Only the four core-subject components are scored; the English diagnostic and the socio-emotional assessment are not weighted and exist to give the student, their school and MINEDUCYT a separate read on English level and wellbeing. The combined AVANZO result makes up 15% (1.5 points out of a possible 10) of a student's final-year academic grade; the remaining 85% comes from the school's own continuous assessment across the year — coursework, projects and periodic tests. Results are reported by performance level per subject and sent to each student's institutional clases.edu.sv email; they can also be looked up afterwards on MINEDUCYT's online results portal.

Important dates

MINEDUCYT sets AVANZO's sitting dates and the results-publication date afresh each year and announces them ahead of time; they have varied from year to year (for example, the main 2025 sitting ran on 4–5 November 2025, with results due around 10 December 2025 and an extraordinary sitting on 12 December 2025 for students who missed the main dates). Treat any specific date as true only for the year it was announced, and check MINEDUCYT's current-year AVANZO page for the exact schedule.

How to apply

There is no separate application a student files. Every student in the final year of bachillerato at a registered school is enrolled for AVANZO through their school. The practical steps reported in recent cycles are:

• The student (with their school's help, if needed) activates their institutional clases.edu.sv account — this account is also the exam login.

• MINEDUCYT runs an online pre-registration step so schools can flag students who lack a suitable device or internet connection, so arrangements (such as a school computer lab) can be made before the sitting.

• School staff responsible for academic records are expected to confirm that every eligible student completes this registration ahead of the published deadline.

After the exam

Passing through AVANZO (i.e., sitting it and having its result folded into the final-year grade) is part of what a student needs to receive their bachillerato certificate; the certificate itself still depends on meeting the school's overall academic requirements, not the AVANZO score alone. We did not find confirmed, current information tying AVANZO results directly into university admission decisions in El Salvador; students planning to continue to higher education should check each university's own admission requirements separately.

Preparation tips

• Check MINEDUCYT's informational brochure for the current AVANZO cycle (published on its AVANZO page most years) for the exact subjects, format and sample items for that year.

• Make sure your institutional clases.edu.sv account is active well before the sitting, since it is both your exam login and where schedule details and results are sent.

• If sitting the test online, confirm in advance that your device and internet connection meet the platform's requirements, or arrange with your school to use one of its computers.

• Review the final year's coursework across all four weighted subjects — Pre-calculus, Citizenship and Values, Science and Technology, and Language and Literature — since AVANZO is built from the national curriculum for that year rather than being a separate syllabus.

FAQs