Against the threats to close the Peasant School of Agroecology of the Union of Rural Workers Without Land of the MNCI-ST
From the CLACSO Working Group Critical Studies of Rural Development We denounce the constant attacks by the Government of the Province of Mendoza (Argentina), specifically by Governor Rodolfo Suarez and the head of the General Directorate of Schools, José Thomas, against the Rural School of Agroecology. We reject the actions that violate the right to education in rural areas, as well as the attempts to close down a pedagogical and political initiative that has been working for a decade with families who produce healthy food for the community.
Peasant education has become a central aspect in the consolidation of rural resistance throughout Latin America. Specifically, the development of Peasant Schools and the strengthening of agroecology are visible in the educational practices of the peasant movement, which is organized around the Latin American Coordination of Rural Organizations of La Vía Campesina (CLOC-VC). CLOC and La Vía Campesina have long been committed to a pedagogy of alternation and popular education. From courses and campaigns based on the "farmer-to-farmer" model, seminars, workshops, and native seed campaigns, to Schools and Institutes of Agroecological Training, the peasantry has made progress in building educational spaces related to the schooling process, whether at the graduation, technical, or even specialization level.
The UST, which celebrates its 20th anniversary in 2022, has been developing a political and educational proposal for and from the countryside, centered around CEFIC-TIERRA, a CLACSO member center and a partner of our Working Group. Its training school, which emerged between 2009 and 2010, expanded throughout the Mendoza region as the Peasant School of Agroecology, which celebrated its tenth anniversary in 2022. The peasant education program has grown year after year. In 2016, the Higher Technical Degree in Social Economy and Local Development was launched; in 2018, the Rural Teacher Training Program and the Higher Technical Degree in Agronomy, with an agroecological focus, were established; and in 2020, the Diploma in Agroecology and Sustainable Land Management and the “Anita Quiroga” Popular Gender School were launched. More recently — despite the attacks of the provincial government and its threat of closure — the Peasant School in Agua de las Avispas, in Luján de Cuyo, made its way forward, and another school opened its doors in Malargüe, with peasant and transhumant indigenous families.
The alternating system, a key element of CEFIC-TIERRA's training, allows students to gain theoretical knowledge for community practice and educational self-management in their territories, in agroecological work, and in spaces of activism. This is why, from the CLACSO Working Group on Critical Studies of Rural Development, we uphold the right to education in the countryside and stand in solidarity with UST-MNCI-ST and the Peasant School of Agroecology.
December 14th 2022
CLACSO Working Group
Critical studies of rural development
This statement expresses the position of CLACSO Working Group Critical Studies of Rural Development and not necessarily that of the centers and institutions that make up the CLACSO international network, its Steering Committee or its Executive Secretariat.
