Cooperative of Popular Educators and Researchers Historical – Argentina

Fernando Santana, president

The Historical Cooperative of Popular Educators and Researchers (CEIPH) is a social, political and educational organization that views education as a tool for social transformation.

As a social organization, we position ourselves from the principles of Popular Education and Latin American critical pedagogies, in the search for the construction of an autonomous, collective and community subject, with the objective of recovering and rewriting knowledge from the perspectives of the forgotten, marginalized and silenced of history and the present, fighting against the irrationality of the capitalist system and building from education the possibilities of a transformation from below.

Our organization was born out of the need and conviction to build a political and pedagogical movement that fights to broaden the debate on the education we want, demanding the need for political and pedagogical training that reaches most education and teaching workers, activists from social organizations that are outside and/or inside the public school.

The following principles guide our organization:

• We promote a Feminist Popular Education.
• We consider Popular Education and Latin American critical pedagogies as a liberating education that questions established knowledge, seeking the formation of political and community subjects capable of integrating into territories to transform existing social relations.
• We aim to coordinate with all organizations that are considering modifying existing social relations and that are not participating in state structures.
• As education workers, we uphold the principle of class and solidarity with the struggles of all our comrades in education and workers in general.
• We place the State as responsible for education, but rescuing the principle of self-management of social organizations that carry out educational experiences, and the autonomy of educational projects.
• We build popular schools that think about strategies (and reflect on them and their practices) for the young and adult subject characterized by their discontinuity in the school trajectory (circulation, expulsion, absenteeism), feelings of failure and self-exclusion from the educational situation.

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Conquests and struggles of the CEIPH

The community-run high schools were founded in 2004. One of their first political stances was to fight for official recognition of their program, meaning that all their students could, upon completion of the course, receive the corresponding secondary education qualification. From this perspective, they began by challenging the State and adopting a phased approach to struggle, developing various mechanisms of direct action to highlight the conflict and achieve initial gains upon which to build.

In that regard, in 2004, provisional recognition was obtained for the community-run high schools operating in the City of Buenos Aires through private management. That same year, scholarships were also secured for all of our students, which had not previously been available under the Youth and Adult Education program.

Since private management did not account for the characteristics of our educational projects, we began the process of transitioning to state management. Thus, in 2008, we became part of the Directorate of Educational Planning, and then, in 2010, the Directorate of Adult and Adolescent Education. In all cases, one of the unwavering principles was the self-management of the organizations for the selection of their own teaching staff, as well as for the development of their pedagogical and educational approach. It wasn't until the end of 2011 that salaries were finally achieved for all the workers in the officially recognized community-run high schools, after eight years of maintaining these spaces without any financial support.

From 2011 to the present, the struggle has been, and continues to be, for the recognition of the community-run high schools that have been opening, as well as for the recognition of a specific aspect of our project that doesn't fit within existing frameworks. Therefore, the horizon of social management allows us to envision the option of a specific pedagogical approach, in accordance with who we truly are.

In the case of our provincial high schools, we have achieved recognition through FinEs programs, which do not represent an end point but rather a starting point to achieve fuller recognition.

We also launched the first nursery school for families whose children attend popular high schools.

We have dedicated ourselves to the task of holding international seminars to discuss with teachers and social activists what kind of education we want and need for Latin America and the Caribbean.

We have established the Dora Barrancos School for the Training of Trainers with the commitment to promote political and pedagogical training that strengthens our actions and debates surrounding Latin American critical pedagogies and popular education. This includes, among other tasks, research and production.

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The Popular High Schools and the educational spaces of the CEIPH

Since 2004, the Historical Cooperative of Popular Educators and Researchers (CEIPH) has been opening Popular High Schools based on the establishment of different types of political articulations:

a.- In the field of Recovered Companies:

Popular High School for Youth and Adults IMPA (CABA)

Popular High School for Youth and Adults Maderera Córdoba (CABA)

Farmacoop Popular High School (CABA)

New Dawn Popular High School (Mar del Plata, Buenos Aires Province)

b.- Within the framework of territorial organizations:

Arbolito Popular High School (Coronel Vidal, Buenos Aires Province)

Warisata Popular High School (San Miguel, Tucumán Province)

Nora Cortiñas Popular High School (Azul, Province of Buenos Aires)

Comunicarte Popular High School (CABA)

In addition, it offers, among other educational activities:

• Popular Primary School (IMPA Recovered Company);
• “Mariela Muñoz” Nursery School (IMPA Recovered Company);
• “Dora Barrancos” School of Training of Trainers, in its virtual version (projected to Latin American countries and territories distant from the City of Buenos Aires) and face-to-face, of an itinerant nature (having already functioned in the high schools of recovered companies, but also in the province of La Pampa);
• Latin American courses and seminars on Popular Education and Critical Pedagogies;
• “PRAXIS. Education and Social Movements” Magazine;
• Publications of books on Pedagogy, Popular Education and Latin American Critical Pedagogies.

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Our networks:

Facebook: CEIP Histórica

Instagram: @ceiphistorica

Twitter (X): @CEIP_Historica

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Our publications:

Political Praxis and Popular Education. Notes on an emancipatory pedagogy in the classrooms of the IMPA High School (2016). Buenos Aires: Naranjo en Flor Publishing House.

Pedagogues of the Revolution. Dialogues on the Cuban Literacy Campaign (2017). Buenos Aires, Caterva Publishing House.

Popular Education from the Margins. A View(s) from the Maderera Córdoba Popular High School (CEIPH) (2019). Acercándonos Publishing House. Buenos Aires.

Praxis Magazine. Journal of education and social movements.

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