From Liberated to Neoliberal: The Case of EDUCO in Chalatenango, El Salvador (1991-2003)

• In Event: Education and Citizen Formation in Central America

Abstract

Immediately after the civil war ended in El Salvador in 1992, the Salvadoran Ministry of Education (MINED) created a neoliberal program financed by the World Bank to incorporate rural communities into the official educational system. During the war these rural communities created “escuelas populares” to teach children and adults how to read, write, and think critically by focusing on the experiences of the war and people’s daily lives. These schools, located in what were called “liberated zones,” were linked to the guerrilla organization Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) and worked with guerrilla soldiers to create new citizens of a postwar El Salvador. However, MINED sought to coopt these schools and eliminate these guerrilla linkages through the program EDUCO (Education with Community Participation). EDUCO theoretically promoted community engagement with the schools while working to eliminate the strong identification with the guerrilla struggle. This paper examines the role of popular teachers and their role as intermediaries between the Ministry of Education and local rural communities. How do teachers negotiate their former “revolutionary” ideals in a neoliberal era?
Studies of education in El Salvador have focused on the 1968 education reform where the Alliance for Progress implemented the use of televisions to “modernize” the country and popular education during the civil war. Very few have written about EDUCO and even fewer have analyzed the role of teachers during the transition to democracy and the impact neoliberalism has had on them and their schools. This paper seeks to shed light to the important role popular teachers hold in forming conscious and concerned individuals in a neoliberal educational system. Moreover, this paper will begin to trace the transnational connections to demonstrate how education has been influenced by international organizations and how studying education in El Salvador can also have implications for educational policies in other countries.

Author

• Stephanie M Huezo, Indiana University