University in the Countryside, Restoring the Right to Rural Young People to Become Professionalized

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.