Abstract: “In order to conduct a verification of the methodologies used by the Ministry of Education of Colombia in the selection of contractors, a process of selection of bidders through Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) was replicated. From the theoretical development of AHP as a tool for decision making, this paper presents the application of the method in public procurement through a case study in which the similarities and differences were compared with the actual outcome of the process. Among the main characteristics generally found that the classification given by the traditional process has a level of identity of 67% compared to the result obtained by the application of AHP. In addition to this, we found that at the point of no coincidence between process and AHP, the contractor had lower levels of performance compared to other contractors. These results are the base to initiate a search for new methods and selection criteria of proponents focusing on getting the contractor that better mee”

Keywords: AHP, public procurement, decision making, recruitment process, contractor.