Discussing the rural high school: An analysis of implementation of PROMER II in Entre Ríos (Argentina)

Abstract

We analyze the Proyecto de Mejoramiento de la Educación Rural (PROMER) in the context of the extension of the middle level in rural areas in Argentina, especially considering the implementation of the Proyectos de Base Local in the province of Entre Ríos, from the functioning of PROMER II from 2016 to 2020. We start from looking into different political formation scales –international, national, provincial and local– and from an ethnographic point of view, we analyze documents, interview state workers, take part in business meetings, and do fieldwork in everyday life in the North of Entre Ríos. We identify disagreement between the origin of policies with international financing, linked to compensatory programmes that gave origin to national policies since the 1990s; the later strengthen of universal educational policies within the framework of which the implementation of PROMER began in Argentina, and provincial and local requests for policies and specific referents that understand the rural high school particularities in Entre Ríos. Meanwhile, based on this local request of policies that pay attention to the specificity of the institutions, we mention that the definition of rural high school and rural life are under discussion.