Universidad en el Campo, Restituyendo Derecho a los Jóvenes Rurales a Profesionalizarse

Abstract

The University in the Countryside Program (UNICAM),
is promoted in Nicaragua, originally by the National
Autonomous University of Nicaragua, Managua,
UNAN-Managua, with the participation of three more
Latin American universities and the advice of two
European universities. The original project consisted of
developing a Cohort in Sustainable Rural Development,
aimed at rural youth in vocational training. The target
of the protagonists was 60 beneficiaries per country,
divided into two groups of 30 each. Due to the initial
demand for protagonists, it started with seven groups
and 280 students in both FAREM. In Matagalpa, four
groups were opened in the municipality of El Tuma – La
Dalia; in Estelí it started with three groups in Miraflor,
Moropotente. This vocational training implemented as
a pedagogical strategy the New School Model, with a
competency-based curriculum. The evolution of the
project allowed it to be institutionalized in a Special
Program of the UNAN-Managua, increasing greater
coverage of rural protagonists, with an expansion
of the territories served and professional careers
implemented. At first, the municipal governments
supported this formation. Currently, there is support
from the CNU, to continue restoring the right and
opportunity to rural youth to enter Higher Education.
The objective of this article is to describe the
implementation of the UNICAM Program in these
ten years of evolution, highlighting its stages to
become a public policy to restore the right of young
people and rural communities to professionalize. The
methodology that was carried out for the construction
of this research was the documentary review of the
Program, reports, monographs and theses that have
been generated in it, carried out on the Program, as
well as interviews with the UNICAM coordinators of
the FAREM of the UNAN-Managua. This article aims
to show how the UNICAM Program contributes to the
restitution of the rights of rural youth to vocational
training, with an inclusive, multiethnic, multicultural
education, with a gender focus, at the service of
the community, with love for the environment,
entrepreneurial and for the benefit of the community.