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| 29 Sep 2026 | |
| Written by Sergio QUIROGA | |
| 2026 Global Schools Prize - Finalists |
Introduction
Few Argentine provinces have sustained a public policy of chess in the classroom for so long. According to Quiroga (2012b), San Luis was the setting for three successive school chess experiences, and the most valuable and enduring was the third, driven by the ULP from 2006 onwards. Analysing that sequence allows us to discuss a central question of contemporary pedagogy: whether a strategy game, taught systematically, can become a tool for teaching thinking and not merely a recreational or competitive activity. Chess is widely perceived as a tool for developing higher-order thinking. A 2025 study that surveyed 315 education stakeholders identified "thinking skills" as one of the three main clusters of benefits .
While stakeholders strongly believe in the benefits, high-quality experimental studies (like randomised controlled trials) have often failed to find that chess instruction automatically leads to significant improvements in academic performance (e.g., in mathematics or reading) or general cognitive abilities . For example, a study in Spain found no significant differences in critical thinking, attention, patience, or risk aversion between students who received chess instruction and those who did not, after one academic year . This suggests that the strongest evidence for school chess lies in its potential to foster social-emotional learning, inclusion, and a positive school climate, rather than as a guaranteed method for boosting test scores. The experience in San Luis, which reached over 30,000 students and built a widespread chess culture, exemplifies this focus on participation and inclusion .
The image shows GM Oscar Quinteros, IM Juan Carlos Hase, Jorge Minuto, Nino Mass, Sergio Quiroga, Alejandro Nogues, and Hector Gonzalez.
The first experiences: 1984 and PROPIE (1987)
The first experience was a national programme of an experimental nature, launched in 1984 by the Secretaría de Deportes de la Nación (National Sports Secretariat). The second, in 1987, was an Experimental Programme called PROPIE, which obtained good results and ran for three months. (Quiroga, 2012b) The general objectives of these proposals, as summarised by Quiroga (2012b), already anticipated the later logic. The aim was to provide teachers with knowledge of chess so as to use it as a pedagogical resource, to encourage the game as support for socio-affective, moral and intellectual development, to integrate chess elements into other areas of knowledge, and to postpone competitive emphasis in favour of community interaction. Both experiences were limited in time. Their historical value lies in having established the hypothesis that chess belongs to the educational sphere and not only to the federated one. Their fragility lay in the lack of institutional continuity: PROPIE lasted three months and did not consolidate a permanent structure.
Ajedrez Escolar Inicial and the role of the Universidad de La Punta
The turning point was the FIDE World Chess Championship, held in Potrero de los Funes in 2005. After that event the idea arose of promoting chess throughout the province, after a survey indicated that only some 850 people practised it. Ajedrez Escolar Inicial began in March 2006. (Universidad de La Punta [ULP], n.d.). Sources differ on the exact date of the start of work in classrooms: March, June or July 2006 (Quiroga, 2012a, 2012b; ULP, n.d.). The project arose from the collaboration between Pedro Bazán, Sergio Quiroga and the teacher Claudia Amura, with the support of Héctor Lucero, a local chess organiser. It sought a methodical and systematic teaching approach that would link chess with curricular disciplines (Quiroga, 2012a). The government of San Luis, through the ULP, provided institutional backing, and its rector, Alicia Bañuelos, created the Chess Area within the university structure, with Bazán, director of the World Championship, left in charge (Rivero, 2011).
The role of the ULP was decisive for three reasons. First, it provided a stable structure, funded by the provincial State, which the earlier experiences had lacked (Quiroga, 2012a). Second, it defined the programme as university extension: it did not depend on the formal education system and was offered free of charge to schools, which only had to provide space, responsible teachers and openness of the establishment (Rivero, 2011; ULP, n.d.). Third, it incorporated technology from the outset, with face-to-face and online instruction. Continuity was not without tensions. Quiroga (2012a) relates that, in December 2009, the ULP closed the Secretaría de Extensión, where the programme had been housed, and dismissed staff. In 2010 the programme was restructured under the name "Ajedrez", under the direction of International Master Claudia Amura and dependent on the Secretaría Académica. The Secretaría de Extensión was not re-created until July 2012. That the programme survived that reorganisation shows its rootedness, but also its dependence on administrative decisions.
Years of duration and scope
Between 1984 and 2026 two temporal scales can be distinguished: brief episodes (1984, 1987) and a policy sustained since 2006. On the latter, official sources speak of 17 years of work up to 2022 (Agencia de Noticias San Luis [ANSL], 2022). If 2006 is taken as the start, the programme has run for almost two decades. The most recent data I was able to verify are from 2022; they should be updated with information from the ULP.
The coverage figures allow its growth to be traced:
· 2006: in July it was implemented in some 120 schools, with 43 instructors and nearly 5,000 primary-school students (Quiroga, 2012a).
· 2010: in the Pedernera department, the programme reached some 10,500 students in approximately forty schools, with classes throughout the year. Quiroga (2012a) estimates that its influence reached more than thirty thousand people if families and educators are included. Across the province, participants exceeded 34,000.
· 2022: 270 school cohorts were recorded with outreach to more than 30,000 pupils, 43 workshops and sports schools, a presence in 92 rural localities and a final of the Juegos Deportivos Escolares with more than 450 pupils from 152 institutions (ANSL, 2022).
The programme also diversified towards digital chess, social chess (older adults, blind or partially sighted people) and prisons (ANSL, 2022). Institutions can adopt whichever modality best suits their context: optional subject, workshop, after-school session, promotional or digital (ULP, n.d.). The ULP's School of Chess Talents was officially created on 30 March 2007, following a project drawn up in December 2006 by Sergio Quiroga and supported by the ULP. In a sense it was a spin-off from the AEI. According to the Manual AEI Argentina, it was formed because, among the thousands of children who came to the school programme, players with a special talent for competition began to emerge, and a suitable environment was created for them (Rivero, 2011). Its direction was entrusted to Pablo Palmero, a promising player from San Luis and former provincial champion, with the support of WGM Claudia Amura and Sergio Quiroga and the institutional framework of the ULP's Chess Area, created by rector Alicia Bañuelos and headed by Pedro Bazán (Rivero, 2011).
Impacts achieved
It is worth separating the impacts into three planes.
Social reach and access. This is the best-documented impact. Before 2005, provincial tournaments brought together fewer than forty participants, mostly adults. In 2022, school qualifiers convened more than three thousand (ANSL, 2022). The programme reached remote rural schools: one teacher travelled a hundred kilometres round trip to give classes in El Morro (Quiroga, 2012b).
Sporting performance. Official sources record 15 Argentine champions in different categories and more than 70 podium finishes since 2005, as well as the organisation of national and international tournaments (ANSL, 2022). It is a real achievement, though secondary to the declared pedagogical aims, which emphasised training rather than competition (Quiroga, 2012a).
Participation and classroom climate. An observational study in 2011 at School No. 38 in El Morro recorded that 70% of students showed complete cooperation with the proposed task, 25% adapted the task to their abilities and 5% did not participate actively, although they continued to follow the classes attentively (Quiroga, 2012b). The same work describes a change in the teacher's role as coordinator of learning, and fluent communication at secondary level. It was an observation situated in a single rural school, without a comparison group.
The transformation of December 2023: from the Ajedrez Programme to Support for Logical Thinking
In December 2023 the Ajedrez Programme, developed from the ULP, ceased to exist as a programme of its own, and chess became integrated into a broader proposal of games called Apoyo al Pensamiento Lógico (Support for Logical Thinking). (El Diario de la República, 2024). The date coincides with the change of provincial government administration in December 2023. Today Apoyo al Pensamiento Lógico (APL) is a sub-area of the ULP's Secretaría de Extensión y Vinculación that offers playful alternatives for learning and coexistence, with workshops throughout the provincial territory (ULP, n.d.). Its offering includes shogi, go, backgammon, chess, sudoku, draughts, dominoes, Jenga and other games (ANSL, 2025) with around 47 workshops. It is no longer a proposal centred on chess; it is an offering of games in which chess is just one more.
Contribution to education and to learning to think
The conceptual contribution of the AEI lies in its definition of school chess as systematic, progressive and continuous teaching, associated with the disciplines of the curriculum (Quiroga, 2012b). It is not a matter of training chess players: what matters is that everyone benefits from the practice, with little attention to competition because of its poor educational value (Quiroga, 2012a). The declared intention is that each class should be a pedagogical encounter where one learns to think and positive social behaviours are observed (Quiroga, 2012a).
The El Morro experience is an observational inquiry carried out in 2011 within the Universidad de La Punta's Ajedrez Escolar Inicial (AEI) Programme. It took place at School No. 38 "Gral. Pablo Lucero", a rural school some 50 km from Villa Mercedes and 25 km from La Toma, which receives pupils from nearby rural localities. The instructor travelled 100 km daily to give the classes, and all the students at the establishment had chess (Quiroga, 2012). The study, begun in May 2011 by Sergio Quiroga, coordinator of the programme, sought to record how many pupils participated and in what way, the activities, the interactions between students and with the teacher, and verbal and gestural participation. Three groups were observed: first cycle (21 pupils), second cycle (17) and secondary level (14). The theoretical framework combined the forms of participation of Tousignant and Siedentop (1983), Carroll's time model (1963) and the contributions of Shulman (1986). The results show complete cooperation with the task in 70% of students, adaptation of the task to their abilities in 25% and non-active participation in 5%, although this last group continued to follow the classes attentively. In the first cycle, curiosity and social learning predominated. In the second, there was a strong absorption in the game with little teacher interaction. At secondary level, greater mastery of chess, dialogue with the teacher and the development of tolerance were observed. The teacher moved from instructor to coordinator of learning (Quiroga, 2012). As limitations, it is a description of a single school, without a control group or measurement of performance, carried out by the programme's own coordinator and with little methodological precision. Even so, it evidences the AEI's reach into rural contexts.
From this perspective, the game functions as an exercise in metacognition. The student analyses situations, calculates moves, evaluates positions, controls impulses, overcomes error and respects the opponent in a game where chance plays no part and cheating is out of place (Quiroga, 2012a). Chess also acts as a motivator for abstract topics and is linked with history, geography, mathematics, art and technologies (Quiroga, 2012a). Quiroga (2011) systematised these ideas in the Manual de Ajedrez Escolar Inicial, which offers a curricular framework for instructors and which appears as a clear and vital reference for the experience. Rector Bañuelos maintained that the programme improves planning and reduces violence, since opponents shake hands before and after playing (ANSL, 2022), while the teacher Claudia Amura stresses that its central value is equality of opportunity (ANSL, 2022).
Limits and pending agenda
First, the available evidence on cognitive effects in San Luis is mostly institutional or self-reported. In the sources consulted I found no evaluations with control groups or measurement of academic performance before and after the programme. Second, the meta-analysis by Sala and Gobet (2016) found positive effects of moderate to high magnitude on mathematical and cognitive skills, but warned that the studies had methodological limitations, such as the lack of active control groups. A large-scale randomised trial in England found no significant improvements in mathematics, reading or science (Jerrim et al., 2016). For this reason, the contribution of the AEI is better sustained on the plane of participation, inclusion and school climate than in a supposed automatic improvement in performance. Third, dependence on administrative decisions was exposed in the 2009–2010 restructuring (Quiroga, 2012a). Institutionalising the programme in the curriculum, training classroom teachers and not only external instructors, and evaluating its results are pending tasks.
Future
The journey from 1984 to 2026 shows the maturation of an idea, from brief experimental experiences to a continued provincial policy. The ULP was the key actor for having provided an institutional framework, resources and technical continuity. The most solid impacts are mass access, reach into rural schools and the construction of a chess culture and the healthy experience of "learning to think" in a world of devices and screens that require more evaluative research. San Luis can become a laboratory for producing that evidence, on the basis of an experience accumulated over almost twenty years.
References
Agencia de Noticias San Luis. (2022, 20 November). Ajedrez: el deporte mental que fomenta la inclusión educativa, social y digital. https://agenciasanluis.com/2022/11/20/835738-ajedrez-el-deporte-mental-que-fomenta-la-inclusion-educativa-social-y-digital/
Jerrim, J., Macmillan, L., Micklewright, J., Sawtell, M., & Wiggins, M. (2016). Chess in Schools: Evaluation report and executive summary. Education Endowment Foundation.
Quiroga, S. R. (2012a). El desafío de aprender a pensar juntos: seis años de ajedrez en las escuelas. EFDeportes.com, Revista Digital, 17(175). https://www.efdeportes.com/efd175/seis-anos-de-ajedrez-en-las-escuelas.htm
Quiroga, S. R. (2012). Entre el aprendizaje y la comunicación. Participación y juego en las clases de ajedrez. EFDeportes.com, Revista Digital, 17(166). https://www.efdeportes.com/efd166/participacion-y-juego-en-las-clases-de-ajedrez.htm
Quiroga, S. R. (2012b). Entre el aprendizaje y la comunicación. Participación y juego en las clases de ajedrez. EFDeportes.com, Revista Digital, 15(166). https://www.efdeportes.com/efd166/participacion-y-juego-en-las-clases-de-ajedrez.htm
Quiroga, S. R. (2012c). Talentos, oportunidades e intervenciones educativas. EFDeportes.com, Revista Digital, 17(169). http://www.efdeportes.com/efd169/talentos-e-intervenciones-educativas.htm
Quiroga, S. R. (Comp.). (2011). Manual de Ajedrez Escolar Inicial (AEI) [Working document]. Universidad de La Punta. https://www.yumpu.com/es/document/view/13822994/manual-de-ajedrez-escolar-inicial-aei
Rivero, A. R. (2011). Ajedrez en las aulas. In Manual AEI Argentina. SlideShare. https://slideshare.net/GESTIONPRODUCTIVAPOZ/manual-aei-argentina
Sala, G., & Gobet, F. (2016). Do the benefits of chess instruction transfer to academic and cognitive skills? A meta-analysis. Educational Research Review, 18, 46–57. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.edurev.2016.02.002
Universidad de La Punta. (n.d.). Ajedrez Escolar Inicial. Programa Ajedrez, Secretaría de Extensión. https://ajedrez.ulp.edu.ar/aei.php
