The old train station in Irino Portela, a small town in the Paradero district, in the province of Buenos Aires, was the first headquarters of the Rural Rotation School CEPT No. 17
Fernando Alli is Director of CEPT n°!/. The new school was built a few years ago. Students spend a full week at school (living together and spending the night) and two weeks at home, where teachers visit them to monitor educational work but also family needs, customs, practices and productive projects.
As an extracurricular activity, the directors and teachers of CEPT No. 17 of Ireneo Portela invited Infobae to give a lecture on journalism to students of the final year of high school
The rotation system in rural education is a method that was invented in France in the 1930s, as a solution to the difficulties imposed by the environment on rural families in sending their children to school. CEPT 17 final year students
In Buenos Aires Province, alternative schools are called Centers for Comprehensive Educational Production. Talking with Infobae in the school lunchroom
Family photo at the end of the day on the school campus, which has
Taking turns and in teams, the school’s students cooperate on cooking and cleaning tasks. Standing, right, Professor Oscar Denova, teacher for several years at Portela, now retired, but always present, organizing visits, talks and donations to CEPT
Organizational chart for distributing tasks to groups to undertake cleaning, dining room service and farm animal care
Answering students’ questions. On the left, Maria Ines Kajihara, English teacher. Teachers also take turns staying at school at night, accompanying students in turn.
Along with Professor Oscar Denova and one of the two chefs who rotate throughout the week
The kitchen, where in addition to preparing the four meals, homemade jams are prepared
Each week, students from a different year stay at the institution; While others return to their homes
Each student spends a third of their time on education, eliminating necessary logistics and operational costs. It is not necessary to go to school every day; You only need to do this once every 21 days, without compromising the quality of learning
“The idea of the rotation schools was to provide families in rural areas with an environment where their children could continue post-primary studies, training for new productive challenges, but also to provide a place where they could train as people and leaders of their community,” explains Professor Dinova. The face-to-face week contributes to the young person’s maturity, both in decision-making and responsibilities.
In this system, the student is always accompanied by his teachers, both while at school and when he returns home, where the teachers visit him.
A special feature of CEPT is that they have a board of directors of parents who have a say, even in appointing school authorities, explained teacher Laura Ramírez (right, with arms folded), host of the visit.
“In CEPT, the theoretical content is expressed in a completely natural way with the practical content that they practice in the places where they live with their families,” explains Oscar Dinova, author of the book “Alternation Schools, a Life Project” (GEMA-1997 Teacher’s Library). Schools contain Facilities where students undertake rural tasks
Intensive production of self-consumption, vegetables and animals takes place in the school. It serves to provide CEPT but also for students to practice rural tasks and apply what they have learned at home.
CEPT is active with primary schools in the area in which they work starting in sixth grade, before students enter secondary school.
All CEPT students come from a working family in rural areas, so there is constant interaction between home and school.
Students’ parents are building new bathrooms for the school
Student-made incubator
The radius of influence of CEPT 17 covers several towns and rural areas of Paradero – Alsina, Sta Coloma, Ireneo Portela, La Tortuga, La Media Vela, El Torito, El Triangulo, La Paloma -; From San Antonio de Areco -Villa Lía y Duggan-, from San Pedro -Ingeniero Monetta, Pueblo Doyle, Santa Lucía, Govt. Castro, Tabla, El Descanso, Río Talla, El Espinillo, La Buena Moza, Parajes Belladres and Paso, Arrecifes – Canada Marta, La Delia, Arroyo de Luna, Capitan Sarmiento and Ramallo – El Paraiso Rural Area
In its area of influence, CEPT is linked to more than 27 rural primary schools from which the enrollment originates, and also works with them to develop local development projects and community cultural and recreational projects.
On the property surrounding the school, students raise sheep, rabbits, chickens and other animals.
– Two samples of Japanese chicken
The families of students who attend these schools live in rural contexts, are accessible by dirt roads, and are always a significant distance from the nearest town or city.
The week they are at school is a week of complete coexistence: in addition to classes, they have leisure and other productive activities.
Alternative teaching methods use the rural environment as a framework for learning, with a close link between theory and practice, and greater integration of families in decision-making regarding their children’s future.
During the 15 days they spend at home, learning continues in each student’s family environment, with two teachers visiting and supervising them.
Oscar Denova’s treatise on rotational education, donated and published by the country’s Ministry of Education and Culture, is one of the manuals for these institutions and remains a reference for teachers entering rotational programs.
This amazing system of rural education, soon to celebrate its centenary, and pioneered by the French priest Pierre-Joseph Granero, has been adopted in many South American countries, such as Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay, among others. Argentina was one of the first countries to promote it.
There are one hundred alternative rural schools in Argentina, with different names depending on the province. It allows education in the countryside, overcoming the challenge of distance, avoiding the uprooting of the family and separation from the social and economic reality of the place of origin.
In 1969, the Mosi community near Reconquista, Santa Fe Province, “copied” the model and opened its first Family Farming School (EFA). This is how the expansion of this system began in our country. It was a success: within a few years, more than 10 EFAS centers would be opened
When it was created in 1999, CEPT 17 operated in the old Ireneo Portela train station (Paradero area).
In the 1980s, the system experienced a resurgence, with institutions of this type being established in Misiones, Buenos Aires, Córdoba, Santiago del Estero, Salta, Formosa, Chaco, Corrientes, and Jujuy. Today there are more than 100 alternative schools throughout the Argentine Republic, of different names and sizes. The province of Buenos Aires has 37 CEPT. Pictured: Students on the platform of the old Portela station
Since the school operates in the new building built in the city centre, the railway station has been converted into a rural history museum
In France, these schools are called “family houses”, a name that alludes to the intention to train young people at the technical level but without harming the humanitarian and family profile, and to promote a democratic environment in which rural communities feel respected and active. Heroes of your destiny
Professor Laura Ramírez is in charge of the museum project under construction at the train station
Family photo at the end of the visit, with all the students present at the school and teachers “Chino” Panzero (Physical Education), Maria Ines Kajihara (English) and Laura Ramirez
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