Since 2012, the so-called “accompanied promotion” appeared in the Argentine educational system, expanding the number of “previous” subjects and this worsened with the pandemic, so the idea put forward by the province of Buenos Aires is not conceptually very novel. .
Putting the focus on repetition is observing only the tip of the iceberg. A measure like this should be the consequence of a series of fundamental changes from the curricular, pedagogical and didactic aspects and that means working a lot with managers and teachers, so that the student body is not a guinea pig.
The truth is that this promotion, as we have seen it up to now, is not an effective support process for the student body and had a negative impact on the learning results, so that, if this is consolidated without serious changes, the consequences will only strengthen the tendency to lower educational quality, with greater inequality and without effective inclusion.
One of the aspects, which is verified in an overlapping way in different discourses, is that the responsibility for the delay, desertion or abandonment would be the student’s own. In honor of the truth, despite the fact that the officials do not like it, the desertion and low completion rates in these volumes are always the result of poor definitions and worse executions of the provincial educational policies, because the provinces have a charge for compulsory education.
What has to be discussed is how children and youth are contained within the educational system and that favors more and better learning, otherwise the elimination of repetition makes this inclusion a new way of suppressing in perspective. .
The problem is that the accompanied promotion is not guaranteeing a real accompaniment and that can make the promotion a snowball that accumulates debts of knowledge that the student cannot accredit within the times of secondary school.
Argentina presents in the last decades a process of consolidation of 50% in the completion of secondary education, the pandemic reduced that percentage. These figures expose even the secondary as the tragedy of Argentine education, because we see how in university education that among those who finish school there are deficits in the minimum knowledge, to continue in higher education. The incorporation of reading-writing modules in universities is the clearest example.
We must be clear that repetition is not the best tool. Today there are models more focused on the competencies of the student body that work on effective recognition of certain advances, but this requires seriousness and deep transformations and not measures without deep debate, at the beginning of a school year.
The educational systems and their communities need to be clear about what the rule is and the exceptions are appropriate, so with or without repetition, the main thing is to see how the person can incorporate the knowledge that allows them to continue their training and that is always necessary. complementary devices that favor those who need it most, otherwise, education ceases to be a promise for the future and becomes a farce. These ideas force us to think about the need for a new school, for new students, different from those of the past, and that forces us to train different teachers who can offer an integrated education, with blocks and not so many subjects, STEM, etc., in definitive: better, current.
Education is something too serious not to be part of great political and social agreements. There is a mandatory relative consent that education must be transformed, so keeping it that way is necessary.
Wouldn’t it be the opportune moment for the realization of a new Pedagogical Congress that puts on the table the improvements and opportunities for change that Argentine education of the 21st century must have and allows reaching basic consensus that makes the school able to respond to the Do you need future generations, their families, teaching and society?
*Member of the Governing Council of Unesco-IESALC.
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