Advanced Diploma in Right to Education and Public Policies in Latin America

CLASS 1: The right to education: historical configuration, conceptual perspectives and current debates in Latin America

Teacher: Fernanda Saforcada

Conceptual summary of the class
The right to education is a theoretical and political category that encompasses multiple meanings, historically constructed from diverse and even antagonistic social and pedagogical perspectives. The disputes surrounding it, which developed alongside the creation and expansion of national education systems, have resurfaced in the 21st century within the context of the various political cycles in Latin America. Furthermore, the right to education represents a culmination of both the debates and struggles for the democratization of education and the analyses of educational policy, as well as the propositional discourses that seek to ground or legitimize themselves through it.
In this class, we will address the conceptions of the right to education that have developed historically and the disputes that have arisen around them, as well as their relationship to the role of the State and the definitions of public and private in education. Subsequently, we will examine the competing perspectives in the 21st century in Latin America and the world: the tensions surrounding the understanding of this right as a natural, personal, individual, or social right; the notion of freedom of teaching; and the association of this right with inclusion.

CLASS 2: The international regulation of the right to education: cooperation bodies, normative system of rights and global policy initiatives

Teacher: Fernanda Saforcada

Conceptual summary of the class
The right to education is a historical principle that forms part of the normative framework of the United Nations human rights system, established after World War II. However, the expansion of the system and the diverse interpretations that have gained traction over time have been dynamic, adapting to different historical contexts and undergoing a substantial shift with the turn of the century, both in its meaning and in the strategies and instruments of its regulation. In this class, we will study the international regulation of this right through various legal and political instruments promoted from the mid-20th century to the present (declarations, covenants, conventions, and initiatives of international organizations such as the Sustainable Development Goals or the 2030 Agenda), and we will analyze how current debates about the meaning of the right to education are expressed within them. We will also address the struggles being waged by various social organizations to influence this global agenda.
Finally, we will explore various perspectives, proposals, and debates surrounding the alternatives and dimensions of monitoring the right to education in the field of public policies, understanding that the ways in which diagnoses are evaluated or constructed in relation to the right embody the dispute over the meanings of education and, ultimately, over the ways of conceiving society.

CLASS 3: The right to education under tension: democratic advances, conservative grammars and resistances

Teacher: Salomao Ximenes

Conceptual summary of the class

The conservative restoration in Latin America is a transnational reaction that unites Christian activism and non-religious political actors in opposition to the egalitarian legal advances achieved by popular movements at the national and international levels. The unique characteristics of this process are highlighted in the concept of (neo)conservatism, linking it to political movements of de-democratization and the restriction of rights, with concrete effects on the right to education. The impacts on public policy vary in each context, depending on factors such as the consolidation and long-standing tradition of democratic institutions, the level of recognition of rights, the balance of power within the religious sphere, and the resistance of popular movements and their allies. In many countries, confrontations surrounding the juridification of education, the shaping of educational policies, and the regulation of teachers' work have become priority areas for the new right. Through the use of the notion of “gender ideology” as a transnational strategy that allows for the articulation of conservative coalitions, these groups have managed to veto human rights topics in the curriculum and establish routines of persecution against teachers. In Brazil, a recent official initiative is the creation of the National Observatory of Violence against Educators, with the objective of investigating and supporting persecuted teachers and proposing public policies for their protection and redress. This class aims to delve deeper into the conceptual aspects and map the reconfigurations of the right to education that are being driven by these movements as a transnational strategy for the articulation of conservative coalitions. 

CLASS 1: The rise of the far right, agenda items and main political strategies

Teacher: Myriam Feldfeber

Conceptual summary of the class

In this class, we will analyze the rise of the far right, considering both global trends and their specific characteristics in Latin America. We will describe the far right 2.0 and the neo-reactionary movement (NRx), the role of Silicon Valley giants and their critiques of liberal democracy, the notion of equality, and historically won rights, including the right to education. Regarding far-right governments in the region, we will analyze the conditions that enabled their rise to power and their policies of dismantling the rule of law and curtailing democracy. We will also describe the construction of neoliberalism "from below" and the transformations in subjectivity. We will outline their agendas and main policy strategies, especially those related to the so-called "culture war" and their proposals in the field of education. We will work on mapping how these right-wing movements are advancing in the region.

CLASS 2: New Right-wing movements in the field of education: confluences between neoconservatism and neoliberalism

Teacher: Cibele Maria Lima Rodrigues

Conceptual summary of the class

The objective is to analyze the new right wing in terms of its articulatory practices within the framework of Hegemony Theory, particularly Laclau's concept of mythical discourse in politics. It highlights the formation of articulations and equivalences between neoconservative and neoliberal positions in the public sphere—centered on the defense of weapons, individualism, and patrimonialism, all within an avowedly conservative discourse with fascist leanings. The analysis also examines the impact of conservative groups on the educational field, particularly their stances on gender issues and their critiques of social movements, such as the groups articulated by the slogans "Don't Mess With My Child" and "School Without Political Parties," which revolve around the discourse of a supposed autonomy of the family in moral education. Furthermore, it explores the convergences in the defense of homeschooling and privatizations within the framework of Necropolitics and the erosion of rights. Finally, it examines the antagonism and proposals of movements that advocate for the right to education. We will continue to map these initiatives in different countries and their deployments at different times and places.

CLASS 3: Private actors in the public sphere: policy networks and privatization processes in the educational field

Teacher: Myriam Feldfeber

Conceptual summary of the class

The presence of civil society organizations and private actors seeking to influence public policy is not a new phenomenon. In the field of education, this presence has increased in tandem with the transformation of the State's role as guarantor of the right to education. However, throughout this century, we have witnessed the formation of policy networks that bring together civil society organizations, foundations, and national, regional, and multinational business groups, which, in some cases, along with state actors, are playing an increasingly prominent role in defining the agenda and implementing educational policies.
The formation of these networks, while directing new forms of governance associated with both the interests of civil society and the market, also guides processes of commodification and privatization of and within education, which have intensified since the pandemic. In Latin America, civil society organizations linked to business groups have proliferated, seeking to influence public policy with the aim of changing the course of education under the premise of improving the quality of educational systems.
In this sense, it is necessary to work on new conceptual tools to understand the functioning of these networks in the definition of educational policies at the local, regional and global levels and the role they have been playing in the processes of educational privatization in Latin America in recent decades.

CLASS 1: Educational policies and inequalities: conceptual debates from the perspective of school democratization

Teacher: Inês Barbosa de Oliveira

Conceptual summary of the class

Concerns about how the dynamics of inequality affect the effective enjoyment of the right to education have intensified with the expansion of compulsory schooling from the 90s to the present. This class will focus on how educational policies not only influence but also shape educational inequalities, conditioning the meaning and scope of the right to education. In this sense, it is important to understand the impact of recent public policies on expanding or restricting the conditions for educational democratization. From a multidimensional and dynamic perspective on inequalities (in their material, cultural, and subjective dimensions), the dynamics of their production, reproduction, and resistance within the political and educational sphere will be discussed, while simultaneously mapping the cleavages related to class, gender, and race, and their expressions in the structure of opportunities at the territorial level. To this end, the main conceptual debates surrounding inequalities in contemporary capitalism will be explored: poverty, inequality, exclusion, and fragmentation.
From this common framework, the social consequences will be analyzed in terms of deepening and redefining social and school inequalities of the policies of the extreme right and of the social dynamics through which the most concentrated groups accumulate advantages while depriving the most vulnerable groups of rights and subjecting them to the accumulation of disadvantages.

CLASS 2: Right to education, living conditions and integrality of rights

Teacher: Inés Barbosa de Oliveira

Conceptual summary of the class

The region is one of the most unequal in the world, and this inequality permeates all aspects of social life. The exercise of the constitutional right to education is undermined by the precarious living conditions of our populations. Based on this assessment, this class will explore reflections centered on the discussion of sustainability, broadening the concept beyond the economic dimension and incorporating it into a social perspective. The notion of social sustainability entails the conviction that social policies addressing different sectors of citizens' daily lives are inextricably linked to the exercise of the right to education.
Social sustainability, in this sense, would be the understanding that the right to a healthy social environment in its various dimensions is fundamental and a prerequisite for the exercise of the right to education. The centrality of this debate also demands other connections: first, between the principles of the right to education and dignity and official and everyday educational policies, in their pedagogical, epistemological, and environmental dimensions, so that we understand them as intertwined and inseparable. Second, it refers to the right to have the ways of being and understanding the world of marginalized populations recognized as valid. Epistemologies of the Global South and their relationship to Freirean thought allow for a broader understanding of this dialogue and its relevance for considering the right to education from the perspective of social sustainability.
Finally, a mapping that makes visible how, where and what social policies involved in the right to education in their countries articulate or deny the diversity of voices, what voices and rights indispensable to an effectively emancipatory or liberating education in Freire's terms.

CLASS 3: The new regime of inequalities and changes in teacher training and work

Teacher: Alejandra Birgin

Conceptual summary of the class

In this class, we will explore how the transformation of the system of inequalities affects the processes of educational transmission and, especially, the structuring of teacher training and the work of teaching. Within the framework of the struggles over the right to education in Latin America and their relationship to the different perspectives and conceptions surrounding teaching, we will analyze how teacher policies are constructed for both teacher training and the work of teaching, understanding this relationship as a space that articulates conflicts, interests, and proactive perspectives that are part of these struggles. The results of this correlation of forces contribute to the inequalities in the educational system while simultaneously reshaping the hierarchies and authority of the teaching profession and its relationship with the community.
We will work on the changes in both the conditions of schooling and the pedagogical discourses that regulate transmission; the processes of territorialization and deterritorialization of teaching under the auspices of the advance of new technologies and pedagogies founded on technological solutionism; and their recontextualizations in the region according to the multiple cleavages of inequality. We will discuss how the relationship between contemporaneity and education in teacher training can be
a central debate to denaturalize inequalities.

CLASS 1: Educational policies of neoliberal continuities for the region

Teacher: Orlando Pulido Chaves

Conceptual summary of the class

In some countries, neoliberal policies remained dominant. These countries prioritized a market-driven approach to education, prioritizing an instrumental view of education over macroeconomic growth and fiscal adjustment policies. This group includes, with some variations, Colombia, Mexico, Panama, Honduras, Costa Rica, Argentina (following Mauricio Macri's victory), and Chile, particularly during Sebastián Piñera's presidency. In these countries, with right-wing and center-right political regimes, neoliberal educational reforms prevailed, advocating for improved educational quality as a prerequisite for growth and increased productivity. It fosters a progressive strengthening of privatization and semi-privatization trends that, in some cases, claim to defend the right to education as their rhetoric, while simultaneously defunding public education, strengthening outsourcing of educational services, consolidating "business education" models, and advancing radical reforms to establish administrative and managerial management models for educational systems and institutions, based on optimizing the cost-benefit ratio. This trend has even abandoned the principles of liberal education that championed universality, free access, compulsory education, and secularism.

CLASS 2: Educational policies of neoliberal ruptures and models of concertation for the region

Teacher: Sofia Thisted

Conceptual summary of the class

Concertation models emerged in Latin America as an expression of the rise to state control by center-left coalitions, long matured in the resistance struggles waged by alternative democratic parties and social movements against brutal dictatorships and the harsh effects of neoliberalism on the poorest communities. Some of these initiatives advanced educational proposals that sought to expand rights, while others maintained continuity with neoliberal policies in this area of ​​public policy. Examples include Chile between 1988 and 2010, Brazil during the Lula and Dilma governments, Argentina between 2003 and 2015 and between 2019 and 2023, and Uruguay between 2005 and 2019.
In the field of education, initiatives varied in scope, encountering both support and resistance. Some endured, undergoing changes of course, while others failed to consolidate. These initiatives were not isolated from globally structured agendas and acquired their own characteristics in each national and jurisdictional context. This class aims to analyze how democratization processes have taken diverse paths, which can be traced back to the meanings attributed to education as a right. We will examine how governments that identify themselves as progressive address the violation of this right and what strategies they have developed to make it effective. We will focus on policies that have sought to mitigate socio-economic inequalities and recognize sociocultural, gender, and generational differences, promoting access, retention, and graduation in various educational settings, as well as curricular definitions that attempt to broaden the prevailing ethnocentric perspectives in the region. We will map these trends and their advances and setbacks over the last few decades.

CLASS 3: Educational policies of neoliberal ruptures and autonomist models for the region

Teacher: Orlando Pulido Chaves

Conceptual summary of the class

As in previous cases, this trend is not uniform. The cases differ substantially. Bolivia, with perhaps the most alternative proposal, which failed to materialize due to Evo Morales' resignation in 2019, proposed the refounding of a Plurinational Community Social State of Law. It approved the Avelino Siñani – Elizardo Pérez Education Law, which sought to “promote the educational revolution that will represent the new pluricultural and complementary, decolonizing social model, recovering the original knowledge of peasants and intercultural communities.” This law underwent a lengthy discussion process involving civil society actors but also faced opposition from urban teachers in La Paz. The law proposes an ambitious reform that should lead to the creation of a plurinational education system in recognition of the diversity of the indigenous peoples who are fighting for decolonization as a guiding principle in the construction of the new state. In Venezuela, a Bolivarian Revolution was proclaimed in 1999 with the rise to the presidency of Hugo Chávez. This revolution defined itself as anti-imperialist and bourgeois-democratic, proclaiming a counter-revolution against neoliberalism and the construction of 21st-century socialism. Education was considered the "third engine" of the five proposed for the revolution.
Ecuador, under President Correa, aimed to build a constitutional state based on the rule of law and social justice, one that was democratic, sovereign, independent, unitary, intercultural, plurinational, and secular. Educational reforms were planned in accordance with these far-reaching strategic goals, but their implementation was uneven. Their achievements were the subject of intense debate within the educational social movement, which pointed to the predominance of an elitist approach in higher education characterized by neoliberal "efficiency-driven" policies that were also replicated in primary and secondary education.

CLASS 1: Pedagogical movements in Latin America and the struggles for the right to education: historical experiences and projections. 20th and 21st centuries.

Teacher: Leonora Reyes

Conceptual summary of the class

The class explores the possibilities of understanding and studying the resistance developed by social and teachers' movements in Latin America against the subsidiary state model and their struggles for the right to education from the perspective of the pedagogical movement. The aim is to spark questions about the experiences of influence on the definition of subject, society, and educational model, and their potential contribution to the foundational principles of a new constitutional charter that proposes structural transformations in the regulation of the right to education. The class is divided into three parts. The first offers an evaluative analysis of the limits and scope of some historical experiences of the pedagogical movement in Latin America. As a concrete example, the course examines the Chilean experience, specifically the configuration of the right to education under the subsidiary state system established by the dictatorship in 1980 and its proposed redefinition of the right to education in the 2022 constitutional proposal. The second section addresses key concepts for deepening the reflection on the history and future of resistance movements and transformative proposals, focusing on the "state-community public education" model. This model gives the State a preferential role in regulating public education, strengthening its growth and democratization through the participation of communities, organizations, and teachers' unions. The third and final section proposes a collective reflection based on the experiences of the students in the course, regarding their own perceptions of the possibilities for transforming educational models from the territories, organizations, or unions they inhabit and participate in. The class proposes a narrative exercise about a lived experience that can then be discussed collectively. The aim is to foster a profound and collaborative reflection.

CLASS 2: Trade union resistance networks against the dismantling of a right. The proposal of the Latin American Pedagogical Movement.

Teacher: Gabriela Bonilla

Conceptual summary of the class

Four decades of neoliberal models have instilled a neoliberal concept of education workers, viewing them as mere implementers of educational policies and “products” designed by the World Bank, transnational technology corporations, international right-wing think tanks, and even religious groups. In response to this model, education unions have taken on the task of strengthening their capacity to propose solutions by launching the Latin American Pedagogical Movement (MPL), promoted by Education International for Latin America. The MPL considers education workers to be active participants in the educational process and that their daily work in the classroom and in their interactions with students allows them to generate extensive knowledge about the pedagogical process. It is this knowledge, born from classroom experience, that should guide educational policies in the region, not the experiments of international financial institutions or their think tanks. This presentation will outline the MPL's strategy for action and mobilization, in which union organizations develop educational policy proposals with a Latin American perspective, built from the classroom through collaborative pedagogical processes. The MPL organizes working groups in educational institutions, neighborhoods and communities, regions or provinces, and at the national and regional levels. In these spaces, joint proposals with a Latin American perspective have been developed to transform the concept of educational quality, to rethink teacher training in terms of the sovereignty of the people, and to protect academic freedom as a form of resistance to standardized curricula. The labor movement has a privileged position to reclaim the knowledge of its members, who generate pedagogical knowledge every day in the classroom. This class aims to connect research with action in defense of public education as a social right, using the MPL's case as a starting point.

CLASS 3: Anti-neoliberal and resistance pedagogies

Teacher: Gabriela Bonilla

Conceptual summary of the class

The Latin American Pedagogical Movement conceives of teaching practice as a contested exercise, embedded within the framework of educational policy, which is itself in constant conflict. Neoliberalism, in this context, contributes to the deprofessionalization of teachers, reducing educational work to technical tasks that can be performed by anyone, regardless of their training. Thus, the figure of the teacher is reconfigured, no longer as an active subject of the educational process, but as a mere implementer of policies imposed by those in power. This process goes hand in hand with a series of reforms that cut staff, impose pre-established curricula and content, and establish uniform evaluation systems that dehumanize and depoliticize educational practice. Within this framework, the Latin American Pedagogical Movement adheres to the proposal of Paulo Freire, who argues that critical pedagogy should allow students and teachers to actively engage with the problems of the objective reality in which they live. Thus, educational content and pedagogical mediation should be geared towards strengthening the bond between the school and the community in which it is embedded. For Freire, critical action manifests itself through praxis, a dialectical process that moves between reflection and action, generating knowledge that is both theoretical and practical. Valverde (2025) proposes advancing the implementation of educational experiences that promote a new pedagogy, taking into account the context, knowledge, and experiences of the students, and recognizing them as active, critical, and participatory subjects in the educational process. He will offer current and situated examples that demonstrate anti-neoliberal, decolonial, and resistance-based pedagogical mediations. He will analyze how these pedagogical practices contribute to the commitment and active involvement of the educational community.

You must be registered in the CLACSO Single Registration System (SUIC) and enter your username and password. If you are not registered, click here. hereTo access the registration form, you must click the "Register" button on the webpage of the Diploma you are interested in.

Upon completion of the registration process, you will receive a confirmation in your email.

Classes will begin in September and will conclude in December 2025.

All registered participants will receive, on the first day of activities, the necessary instructions to access the classes, bibliography, and discussion forums through the CLACSO Virtual Training Space.

Accessing and navigating the Virtual Learning Environment is very simple and user-friendly. In any case, a technical and academic support team will always be available. For inquiries, you can write to [email protected] 

 You must write an email with the request to [email protected] We will send you the requested certificate as soon as possible.

Exceptional criteria: In exceptional cases and within the first 20 days of starting the Higher Diploma, the student may write to [email protected] Requesting withdrawal and stating the reasons. After the case is evaluated, a response will be sent to the request. If approved, the student may resume the Higher Diploma program if a new cohort is offered the following year. After that period of time has elapsed since the start of the course, no requests will be accepted.

Money paid will only be refunded in cases where the organizing institutions decide to cancel the activity. 

Yes, the advanced diploma is certified by CLACSO. The diploma will be sent digitally and is completely free of charge.

Payment can be made in one installment, by credit card or bank transfer. We also offer the option of paying in 3 installments.

Yes. There will be discounts for students belonging to CLACSO Member Centers and CLACSO Associated Centers, for CLACSO Associate Researchers, and for all those who pay within the discount period.

You can check if you belong to a member center here: 

https://www.clacso.org/institucional/centros-asociados/

The Advanced Diploma program integrates a dynamic of asynchronous and synchronous classes. Classes are primarily asynchronous. The schedule for synchronous sessions will be communicated by the Diploma coordinator at the beginning of the program, and participation in these sessions is not a prerequisite for passing the program.