Educational Policies, Inequalities and the Secondary Level in Argentina in the 21st Century: from the Expansion of Rights to Funding Cuts and Meritocracy (2003-2019)

Abstract

This article describes and analyzes educational policies in Argentina in the 21st century considering two government administrations (Frente para la Victoria and the Alianza Cambiemos) and focusing on the secondary level. The methodological approach consisted in the compilation and systematization of documentary sources related to the educational policies implemented between 2003 and 2019 in order to analyze each period. The article concludes that the educational period of Frente para la Victoria governments (2003-2015) was characterized by the expansion of the right to education and the rise of significant inclusion. Regarding the Alianza Cambiemos government (2015-2019), it was a period marked by budget cuts, the aspiration to a supposed depoliticization and certain inertia and emptying of the educational policy agenda, with a preponderance of meritocratic criteria and linked to entrepreneurship. However, in both periods, international trends towards privatization, evaluation and decentralization were sustained. With regard to the secondary level, two issues are common to both periods: the tendency to govern the system through the formulation of jurisdictional proposals that are framed in resolutions of the Federal Council of Education and the transformation of the school format as the axis of the agenda.