Title of the short film: "Juntos y a la Par. La mirada de los docentes en una Escuela de Reingreso" ("Together. Secondary school teachers´ perspective in a Returning school")
Country: Argentina
Year of release: 2014
Directors: Analía Inés Meo - Andrea Casais
Duration: 16 minutes
This short film presents teachers´ perspective on their students and work in one Returning School in the City of Buenos Aires. In this City, eight Returning schools were created (six in 2004 and two in 2006). They were part of a wider local inclusive policy strategy to comply with the educational provincial Law 898, which established the compulsory nature of secondary schooling in 2002. RS aim to guarantee the return, attendance and graduation of young people between 16 and 18 years old who, for different reasons, had dropped out for -at least- one school year. At the time of RS´ creation, around 15.000 youngsters were outside of the City school system (in 2002 they represented 2% of the local school population).Returning Schools (RS) organize time and space in different ways than ‘traditional’ secondary schools. For example, rather than being academically and socially structured around form groups attending different school years, RS are organised around individuals’ educational trajectories. In these institutions, students could potentially follow their own pace to fulfil the school’s academic requirements. Students could re-sit a module as many times as they need. Unlike mainstream secondary schooling, there is no repetition of a school year. Despite this, the educational certificate given by RS to pupils are of equal formal value of that of any secondary school.
This short film was produced by the Centro de Producción e Investigación Audiovisual (CEPIA), Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Buenos Aires -UBA- and partially funded by the Secretaría de Ciencia y Técnica, UBA. It is part of the research project "Teachers´ working identities in times of educational fragmentation. A study in the City of Buenos Aires" (Director: Analía Inés Meo)