There are many international frameworks that support the importance of assessment as a key element in the quality of education (OECD, 2014). In the European context, many studies have been carried out (Eurydice, 2003, 2009, 2015) and the European Union grants great importance to the assessment of Education in member states, as demonstrate in the Annual Report "Education and Training Monitor" (European Commission, 2016).

Most nations develop their own assessment frameworks based on international and national standards that fulfill the requirements needed to access higher education and which in many cases determines the quality of the educational system of each state. It is worth noting at the outset that any analysis of different national assessment systems will quickly reveal a wide variety of assessment techniques and approaches. All of these systems have their strengths and weaknesses in relation to technical, resource and time considerations and in their impact on the associated education system. Even if it were possible, in a given context, to start completely afresh in devising an assessment system, there is no universal best technical practice that could be adopted. Instead, the choices made in devising assessment systems inevitably reflect the values and priorities of the broader social context in which they are made (Cresswell, 1996; Broadfoot, 1996).

In the Spainish case, the assessment framework has gone through many changes due to the differents reforms that took place in the country which derived in many General Education Laws (Lukas, Santiago, Joaristi & Lizasoain, 2006). The last assessment framework is described in the last two general laws of education –LOE at 2006 (MECD, 2006) and LOMCE at 2013 (MECD, 2013)–. In these two laws, the assessment policies of the Spanish Educational System are defined at national level and, in addition, the autonomous communities are allowed to provide their own assessment systems (article 142.1 of the LOE). In the exercise of their competences, the different autonomous communities define their assessment policies of the entire educational system, as long as they also develop those that the Ministry define.

Educational decentralization, therefore, allows for an uneven development of these policies. Thus, it is necessary to analyze, from a comparative perspective, the different assessment systems of these intranational units. Specifically, in this research, we focus on the assessment policies of the Spanish Compulsory Education System –ISCED 1 and ISCED 2, according to UNESCO (2011)–.

Finally, the linkage and influence of European policies in the realities of the Spanish Autonomous Communities is inseparable, as shown by the Eurydice Network studies (e.g. Eurydice, 2015) and the engagement of the Autonomous Communities in the European Network of Policy Makers for the Evaluation of Education System through the National Institute for Educational Evaluation (INEE, for its acronyms in Spanish).

Considering everything that has been stated so far, the purpose of this work is to provide evidence for the debate and reflection around the policies of assessment of educational systems. This general purpose is embodied in two research objectives:

1. To review the systems of evaluation of the compulsory education of the different Autonomous Communities.
2. To conduct a comparative study of the assessment systems of compulsory education in the different Autonomous Communities.

In this Congress, we present the results of second objective, the comparative study of the assessment policies of the education systems, in other words, the convergences and divergences between autonomous communities around the meaning of assessment policies (Dimension 1) and programs (Dimension 2).

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