Introduction

The Justicialist governments that took place between May 25, 1973 and March 23, 1976, sparked antagonistic actions and policies throughout this period. After seven years of military dictatorship and a decade of governments with limited representation due to the proscription of Peronism, this political movement won the national elections once again channelling different social expectations. The social pact that preceded the 1973 elections and its ratification in the Great National Agreement allowed a majority of Argentines to think about the return to the idea of "organized community" proposed by the Peronist doctrine (LEYBA, 2003). This agreement occurred when the Justicialist Liberation Front (FREJULI, for its acronym in Spanish) came to power, headed by Héctor J. Cámpora, who responded to the guidelines that Juan Domingo Perón established from exile. After the resignation of Cámpora and the brief provisional government of Raúl Lastiri-president of the Chamber of Deputies of the Nation, there were new elections. The leader of this political movement came to power that same year, maintaining a policy of integration in a scenario from multiple sectoral pressures and redistributive demands resulting from alliances promoted by the government (^{ROUGIER & FISZBEIN, 2006}). Within the Peronist movement, the presence of revolutionary tendencies, expressed by the armed group of Montoneros, led this group to go into hiding in May 1974. The unforeseen death of President Perón and the assumption of María Isabel Martínez de Perón-his wife and vice president of the Nation-implied a shift in state policies towards right-wing positions (^{FRANCO, 2011}; 2012; ^{LENCI, 1998}; 1999; 2014), which was opposed in almost all aspects to the government plan proposed by Cámpora in May 1973. The ideological heterogeneity, the sudden succession of officials and the complexity of the socio-political and economic framework condensed divergent meanings and proposals, which quickly dissolved the homogeneity of the movement established during the 1940s and 1950s (^{REIN, 1998}). The armed struggle and political violence became channels through which antagonisms were expressed. The years of the third Peronist government, according to ^{Rougier and Fiszbein (2006}, p. 9), were some of the most “vertiginous, controversial and complex” in contemporary Argentine history.

During the first Peronist governments, a large part of the educational policies were aimed at strengthening the link between education and industrial work within the framework of an economic policy project that sought to consolidate national industrialization to face the insufficiency of stock caused by the Second World War. The technical education subsystem was consolidated after the creation-in 1944-of the National Commission for Professional Guidance and Learning (CNAOP, for its acronym in Spanish), an autarkic body that was replaced by the National Council for Technical Education in 1959. This had to run and manage the technical education and professional training establishments that had depended on the CNAOP, as well as on the Ministry of Culture and Education of the Nation. Its mission was to "educate the youth comprehensively and achieve technical professional training for their students."² The items that were previously assigned to the CNAOP including the apprenticeship tax were transferred to him.³ In the mid-1960s, an institutional unification of all the middle schools that depended on CONET was carried out, under the name of national schools of technical education (ENETs, for its acronym in Spanish), suppressing the nation's factory-schools and industrial schools (^{PINEAU, 1997a}). The first had been established together with the CNAOP and consisted of two cycles corresponding to secondary education with a mixed teaching and production regime. The industrial schools of the nation, for their part, were establishments dependent on the Ministry of Education whose curricular proposals for the secondary level, according to the businessmen nucleated in the Argentine Industrial Union, had a very marked theoretical imprint that hindered training for performance at the interior of industries (^{PRONKO, 2009}). Since then, the national technical secondary level maintained a curricular structure organized in two cycles of three years each, which required morning and evening attendance. The first was common to all specialties and aimed both at the comprehensive training of the student and direct contact with productive and work activities. After its completion, the student could choose to take the “fourth year of term” or continue the upper cycle. In the first case, he obtained the title of Technical Assistant in a specialty since the study plan emphasized professional culture with practical applications to train a qualified operator. The upper cycle consisted of a theoretical-scientific complement that allowed the acquisition of a specialization to conduct the work process.

The developmental rulers throughout the 1960s frequently highlighted the potentialities of education, and of technical education in particular, as drivers of technological, economic, and social modernization. In this way, technical education appeared in a privileged place in the process of change that was proclaimed, whose goal was to achieve heavy industrialization, a wish unfulfilled in the previous two decades. However, the impulse of this teaching subsystem was not uniform, so that the ideas that promoted it did not materialize. This topic has received relative attention from the authors in the following period.

The objective of this article is to reconstruct the development of national technical education during the third Peronist government by analyzing the speeches and reform projects of the educational system formulated by ministers and state officials, as well as the educational policies of CONET with relation to their ENETs. It is based on the hypothesis that, despite the fact that the presidency of CONET was in charge of the same official throughout the period, two different moments can be seen. During Jorge Alberto Taiana's tenure as Minister of Education, there was a special interest in linking education and work, in developing institutional innovations and introducing changes in the curricular structure of the technical secondary level. After the death of President Perón, concerns for control and discipline focused attention, limiting the scope of the transformative projects of CONET's educational offerings. However, policies different from those designed during the Taiana ministry were introduced that somehow tried to promote the education-work link.

This article starts from the notion that the State is not a univocal actor but a polyphonic space in which officials and various agencies interact, express and intervene, causing continuous rearrangements within it (BOHOSLAVSKY & SOPRANO, 2010). In this sense, governmental and bureaucratic institutions are understood as dynamic actors, who intervene in political processes generating tensions and confrontations with each other and with public agendas, policies and civil society (^{OSZLAK, 2006}). Contributing to this idea, some main features of the personal trajectories and ideas of officials are described in this text, in conjunction with the progress of state policies, as proposed by Ben Plotkin and Zimmermann (2012).

In the disciplinary field of the History of Argentine Education there is considerable production on the first two Peronist governments. Regarding the technical education subsystem that was created under the CNAOP, the works of ^{Dussel and Pineau (2002}) and Koc Muñoz (2014) stand out. The secondary level of the technical modality has been studied by Pineau (1991) who recovered the research of ^{Wiñar (1981}) and contributed other empirical indicators with which he revealed the political complexity of the institutional development of technical education, focusing on the appearance and operation of schools-factories. Regarding the university level dependent on the CNAOP, the articles by Pineau (1997a) and ^{Mollis (1991}) are suggestive of it. The first dealt with the interpretations that different academics gave to the National Workers University and the second, focused on institutional particularities and its transformation into a Technological University, contributed to the knowledge of the profile of graduates of the technical subsystem and their possibilities of accessing a higher education. Among the studies of technical education on primary and secondary level dependent on the Ministry of Public Instruction and Justice, the contributions of ^{Spregelburd (1997}), ^{Navarro (2015}) and ^{Pronko (2009}) are distinguished from the rest. The first author managed to reconstruct the interplay between the national educational policies that gave rise to the Monotechnical Missions of Cultural Extension and the particularities and meanings that one assumed in a Buenos Aires locality. Navarro framed the creation of these institutions within the framework of rural education in Salta. Pronko, for its part, investigated the initiatives of the Argentine Industrial Union in relation to the Industrial Schools of the Nation. The later historical period was approached by Pineau (1997b) when reconstructing the reformulations of the education-work link between 1955 and 1983 through the study of technical education policies, although he did not analyze in detail the third Peronist government. However, his contribution is interesting since he warned that, after the fall of the Justicialist government in 1955, the technical education-industrial work relationship was once again consolidated in 1980 when, paradoxically, said economic activity was discouraged by monetarist and militaristic political of the last military dictatorship.

On the period 1973-1976 the historiography of education has been prolific in recent years regarding the study of the university environment (^{BESOKY, 2017}; ^{CARNAGUI & ABBATISTA, 2004}; ^{FRIEDEMANN, 2016}; 2017; ^{DOVAL, 2001}; ^{IZAGUIRRE, 2011} ; ^{RODRÍGUEZ, 2014}; 2015) and, to a lesser extent, of the literacy of adults and children (MENDELA, 2015; TOSOLINI, 2010; ^{PALACIOS & RODRÍGUEZ, 2006}; ABBATISTA, 2015).

Other investigations by ^{Rodríguez (2013}) and ^{Abbattista (2013}; 2019) are of great value for this article since they addressed the ideological affiliations of the officials of the educational portfolio. Regarding the problem of national technical education in the period 1973-1976, there is an evident absence of specific studies.

The corpus of sources analyzed in this article is made up especially of official documents, among which the following stand out: the speeches of the ministers of education,⁴ the final reports of the assemblies of the Federal Council of Education (CFE), the Boletín de Comunicaciones of the Ministry of Culture and Education (MCE), the Boletín del Consejo Nacional de Educación Técnica (CONET), the Boletín del Centro Nacional de Documentación e Información Educativa (CENDIE) and Boletín Oficial of the Argentine Republic (BO). These sources were supplemented by Clarín and La Capital newspapers, of national and regional circulation respectively.

Technical training in educational reform projects

On May 25, 1973, Héctor Cámpora assumed the presidency of the Nation. Previously, he had served as deputy and secretary of Perón (^{BOETTO, 2015}); during his short government, he appointed Jorge Alberto Taiana, Perón's personal doctor from his inner circle, as Minister of Culture and Education. The Ministry was formed, among others, by young militant intellectuals of the Revolutionary Tendency of Peronism. Although this line was not hegemonic within the Ministry, it left a forceful imprint on projects and programs by incorporating elements of the cultural and educational policies of the revolutionary Cuba, the Movimiento de Izquierda Democrática Allendista de Chile and the production of several generations of intellectual Argentines of the left-wing (^{ABBATTISTA, 2013}; 2019).

In the inaugural message of the 1973 Legislative Assembly, Cámpora attributed the “totality of the deep problems” that affected the country to the crisis in the educational system. He postulated an educational and cultural revolution with a national sense necessary to overcome the incongruity between educational institutions and the requirements of the Nation. Dependency and economic colonization had to be fought in various fields, including education. He argued that the school, to "serve the country," should create independent mentalities and considered it essential to enact a national education law for which channels of consultation and participation of parents, teachers and students should be enabled. Since education is a heritage of popular culture, "the people" had to participate in defining the objectives of the educational system and assume certain responsibility for its operation. Thus, with a popular and Christian sense, the school would adjust its role to the specific requirements of the social and economic development of the country. This law had to draw up the national, general and common guidelines that would be complemented with regionalized planning and decentralized administrations of the system.⁵

The educational guidelines and conceptions upheld by Cámpora were endorsed by the officials of the educational portfolio. Among its foundations was the importance of overcoming the segmentation that divided the levels and orientations that divided manual and intellectual work in secondary education, since this was reflected in the premature choice of a secondary education modality, ignoring the other branches of knowledge. The different orientations of this level, sharpened the pre-eminence of intellectual education over technical education, devalued because it was associated with manual and artisan tasks. In addition, they postulated the importance of institutionalizing permanent education, to meet the demands of productive innovations, and of recognizing primary and secondary education as a block of initial training. The projected didactic, curricular and organizational modernization was associated with social participation, the lever of a "popular education." They projected that the educational demands of the communities would be directly related to the satisfaction of regional occupational needs, requiring an expansion and diversification of the educational offer, integrating technical and humanistic knowledge. The education-work link proposed by President Cámpora was endorsed by Perón-a key reference of the rulers and officials in exercise of power. The exiled leader considered it essential to provide job training, not only for its effects on productive work, but also for its material and spiritual benefits.⁶

In correspondence with these principles the Minister of Culture and Education, Jorge Taiana, stated the importance of the participation of the educational community, in an orderly and disciplined manner, in the definition of educational policy. This was part of the broader process of reconstruction and national liberation, which allowed the school to be opened to the people, turning it into a center of popular culture and a provider organism "of the human, scientific and technological elements indispensable for productive work."⁷ He argued the need to explore the vocations of students throughout secondary education, showing them that university education was not the only option to pursue, but that there was a diversified range of activities and professions from which they could choose and contribute to the socio-economic development. The minister defended a training that would overcome the antinomies between manual and intellectual work and that would offer graduates a job opportunity to avoid unnecessarily academic training.⁸

Despite the presidential succession of Cámpora by Lastiri-and the latter by Perón-and the displacement in the ministry of those young people of the Revolutionary Tendency of Peronism (^{ABBATTISTA, 2013}), the educational principles they proposed were included in the recommendations made in the Assemblies of the CFE of September and November 1973. In them, work began on the sanction of a national education law. The Programmatic Guidelines of the Argentine Educational Policy were established, which ratified the importance of social participation in education and defined the purpose of education. To achieve the goal of liberation, education had to vindicate national and popular values-fundamentally social justice and anti-imperialism-and train "critically" for production and leadership. Among other things, the following actions were recommended: teaching technical tasks in the last years of primary and in secondary education; know the social expectations about this cycle to respond to specific demands; decentralize technical and pedagogical management; replace the single academic calendar with one that respects and takes into account regional and local particularities; facilitate the recognition of degrees, and study equivalences.

With regard to technical education, these CFE assemblies also addressed the problems posed by the different responsibilities of the degrees issued by technical schools in different jurisdictions and the need to reform the tax on technical education was agreed upon.⁹ The officials gathered in the sessions of the CFE considered it necessary to grant co-participation of the tribute to the provinces that supported technical schools and to grant the CONET power to decide on the creation of private technical establishments, eliminating the power of the companies to decide which courses and schools to open and subsidized.¹⁰

A few months after the start of Perón's presidency, the 1974-1977 Triennial Plan for Reconstruction and National Liberation was published, through which he supported the ministerial management of Taiana. Despite the hostility of the political climate and the numerous disagreements between the President and the organizations in which officials who remained in the educational portfolio were active, the Executive Power approved the actions undertaken (^{ABBATTISTA, 2013}). In the Triennial Plan, principles made explicit by Cámpora and Taiana and the recommendations of the CFE Assemblies were taken up. Education was conceived as a "process of enlisting new and postponed social categories" to join "effective work and decision-making powers" and presented as a "profitable investment" within the framework of a national economic program aimed at release. A priority list was established, headed by the eradication of illiteracy, the reduction of semi-literacy, the stimulation of lifelong learning and the expansion of kindergartens. Then the priority was placed on technical training, which should be transversal both at the primary and secondary levels, dissolving the artificial boundaries between theoretical and practical education, and should tend to make the “student a worker and the worker a student”. Teaching had to be adapted to the geographical, cultural, historical and socioeconomic peculiarities of the various regions in order to be linked to productive work. In order for the proposed objectives to be met, it was planned to undertake infrastructure works and decentralize the Ministry of Education, creating regional delegations for technical-teaching assistance.¹¹

In accordance with that planning, Minister Taiana considered that the most acute deficit in the educational system was at the secondary level. It emphasized the need to reorient it to train young people capable of increasing the work force and of assuming a leading role in the process of national reconstruction.¹² Regarding technical education, he argued that it should be updated with modern technology and include humanistic content, at the same time that careers had to be narrowed down, adapting them to multiple job opportunities.¹³

The Undersecretary of Education of the Nation, Reynaldo Ocerín, explained that to achieve the mission of the Triennial Plan in relation to the secondary level it was necessary to achieve its universalization and modernization. It was planned to expand the number of establishments as well as the enrollment; increase the number of multipurpose schools¹⁴ and link the secondary level with permanent education. To modernize it it was necessary to reformulate the cultural content-not professional-; implement a common basic cycle; provide job opportunities by expanding the modalities of agrotechnical, technical-commercial, artistic education and the transformation of the baccalaureate.¹⁵

In April 1974, at the IV Ordinary Meeting of the CFE General Assembly, the dispatch of the Secondary Education Legislation Commission was approved. It proposed to rethink all the functional and operational aspects of the level: the government of education, the statutes, laws and regulations; the modalities of evaluation and promotion, to ensure greater retention of students; teacher training, so that it acquires a regional imprint; and the building infrastructure and the denomination of the school units, to unify them. Out of the question were the extension of the obligation and the change in the forms of teaching, both approved in that instance. In general secondary education, the mandatory nature of a new common basic cycle of three years was proposed that should promote the harmonious and balanced development of adolescents and

facilitate the acquisition of basic skills for the future exercise of professions and trades; […] achieve a preparation that turns students into subjects capable of eventually entering the production process […] introducing work by programmatic areas to overcome the evils of encyclopedism and the mere juxtaposition of knowledge, and at the same time, work with the great organizing principles of the different contents.¹⁶

The resolutions of the CFE indicated that spiritual and procedural aspects should be developed in the basic cycle: stimulate nationalism, solidarity, order, the practical value of manual and technical and artistic work, among others; vocationally and professionally guide the student and train him for efficient performance in the world of work and at the higher level. They encouraged changes in teaching methodologies: areas would be created based on the organizing principles of the different knowledge, integrating minimum institutional content, regional particularities and student preferences.¹⁷

The conet versus radical educational change programs

In line with the intentions of Cámpora, Taiana and the officials of the Ministry of Education in terms of linking education and work, the president of CONET, engineer Carlos Benítez, considered that technical education should be stimulated due to its impact on the industry. He thought that the training of national technicians was key to achieving economic independence, changing the course of international trade and repositioning the country in the concert of nations. The complete reorganization of the technical education subsystem would increase the general well-being, so these actions would be carried out in the name of the people, the main character of the liberation movement. Given the characteristics of this teaching modality, it was a priority to have updated equipment to guarantee the effective practice of each student.¹⁸

During the second half of 1973, when the presidency of the Nation passed from Cámpora to Lastiri and then to Perón, in the national technical schools the experimental creation of instances was sponsored that allowed the participation of the community in the government and in the administration of education, since parent advisory centers were set up. They should facilitate close monitoring of students and collaborate in the achievement of educational objectives.¹⁹ Also the directors, teachers of practical teaching and students integrated work tables in which they debated the study plans. In order to regionalize education, business associations were given participation in the debate on updating curricula. Provincial and municipal governors negotiated with CONET officials projects aimed at improving and expanding the scope of technical education in peripheral areas and to achieve the half-fare urban transport ticket for students.²⁰

In September 1973, actions were carried out that promoted the autarky and autonomy of CONET. The Peronist government repealed the legislation that had decentralized it into a body with regard to the administration and operational management of school units.²¹ In this way, it was granted guarantees for its full operation, eliminating the political limitations imposed during the so-called “Argentine Revolution”.²²

After the publication of the Triennial Plan for National Reconstruction and Liberation, in December 1973, the President of CONET ratified his ideas about how sovereignty and independence should be sustained by a highly developed national industry and technology, since an exclusively agricultural economy would be incapable of turning the country into a power. Consequently, he attributed great importance to technical education and CONET, proposing to train 30,000 technicians, 70,000 qualified workers and 650,000 workers with a minimum of qualification, taking into account the economic-productive diversity of the country.²³ To achieve these figures and purposes, the offer was expanded through the creation of new schools and the strengthening of instances of job training, improvement and professional reconversion. It also led to qualitatively transform the supply and teaching dynamics at the secondary level. The structure of this level, made up of the basic and higher cycle, which granted two alternative degrees (Technical and Technical Assistant) was contested by CONET officials, because they considered that socioeconomic problems made it difficult to sustain the double shift course and there was no real correspondence between the training acquired in each cycle and the effective demands of the labor market.

In the document "Technical education in achieving the objectives for national reconstruction and liberation,"²⁴ published at that time, it was stated that technological evolution was not an end in itself but that its goal was the contribution to happiness and freedom of the people: it was a solidary objective, aimed at the constitution of their own production and consumption models, which would respond to the needs of Argentine society. The training of the workforce, then, had to be attended as a priority by the government and businessmen. It was both a need of the State and a right of man, inherent in his role as the protagonist of the national economic activity. In this sense, training was not conceived only as the transmission of knowledge that enabled them to perform in an economic activity, but was projected as part of a comprehensive training that understood the worker as a “human being, a participant in society”.²⁵

As postulated, comprehensive education would allow students to acquire and advance in the levels of decision and choice necessary to contribute to the development of technology and it would guarantee the training of the workforce adjusted to occupational needs. Specifically, it was proposed to restructure the ENETs study plan. The new curricular design consisted of three stages of two years each, which corresponded to different degrees of approach to the work environment and enabled various job opportunities. The first was a common basic cycle aimed at the comprehensive training of students, which provided cultural and professional knowledge and offered experiences in various work activities and enabled them to continue higher studies and start different jobs. In the next cycle, which corresponded to technical assistants, the professional culture would be emphasized with practical application and the students would be provided with professional training related to a branch of productive activity. The objective of the higher technical cycle was to prepare for conduction and research in a specific specialty. The plan was adjusted to the premises of permanent education and the demand for industrial activity. It was hoped that staggered education would contribute to overcoming the problems of desertion and marginalization, to consolidate the "national being" and to achieve effective gravitation on production.

In addition, through the action program arising out of the Triennial Plan, it was planned to rehabilitate the schools-factories and install vocational training cycles for adolescents. As argued by CONET officials, they ensured consistency and complementarity between the requirements of the industry and the training of the workforce, for which a commission was set up to reestablish them.²⁶ The vocational training cycles for adolescents would be aimed at young people over 14 years of age who had passed at least the fifth grade of primary schooling-or had dropped out of secondary education-and would be located in urban centers with industrial plants.

These technical education policies ratify ^{Abbattista's (2013}) statement that the cultural policy of the Ministry of Education officials related to the Revolutionary Tendency of Peronism maintained the guidelines of the policies of the first Justicialist governments regarding technical education. The changes in CONET's teaching proposals, however, did not reach the scope of the transformations proposed in the Triennial Plan. With the progressive expulsion of the officials who accompanied Taiana that occurred during 1974, the study plans in force were maintained. The only modifications registered in the secondary-level curriculum were those related to the replacement of the Democratic Education subject by the Study of Argentine Social Reality (ERSA, for its acronym in Spanish) and the updating of the upper cycles of the Electromechanical and Business Administration specialties.²⁷

The initiatives that made progress were those related to the approval of the curriculum of the Vocational Training Cycle for Adolescents, lasting two years, which enabled them to access certain jobs, according to age. The plan was made up of three areas and consisted of compulsory and optional activities. Among the former, an area of ​​general culture was taught that had the objective of complementing basic education; it included, among other subjects, Labor Legislation and ERSA. The area of ​​professional culture was also compulsory; it tended to develop manual skills and provide the "versatility" required for adaptation to the labor market and consisted of the subjects Technical drawing and Workshop practice. Complementary or recovery activities were physical education and recreation.²⁸ The specialties in which they formed these Cycles were: Masonry, Graphic Arts, Food Industry, Clothing Industry and related, Home Installations, Chemical Industries, Automotive Mechanics, General Mechanics, Metallurgy, Mining, Agricultural Technology, Textile Technology and Telecommunications.²⁹ For its implementation, fourteen ENETs were created, called training centers for adolescents, through agreements with governments and official departments.

The Peronist right in power and the change in the educational agenda

After the death of President Perón, on July 1, 1974, there were changes in the national cabinet. In a climate of growing social conflict and political violence, María Estela Martínez assumed the presidency of the Nation and replaced Minister Jorge Taiana with Oscar Ivanissevich. The government strengthened the alliance of the Peronist right with the Armed Forces and the more concentrated capitalists, replacing political officials who represented the national bourgeoisie and the “moderates” with right-wing men (^{SERVETTO & PAIARO, 2013}; ^{ROUGIER & FISZBEIN, 2006}). Many of the officials from the educational portfolio of the first Justicialist governments-Carlos Frattini, Pedro Andrés Saggese, among others-were summoned to the MCE (^{ABBATTISTA, 2013}; 2019). María Estela Martínez postulated that the purpose of education was to achieve the identification of the soul and the life of the students with the Argentine territory and its spiritual tradition, to affirm the harmonic balance between the individual and society, consolidating the organized community.³⁰

Minister Ivanissevich presented himself as a devoted adherent of Christian and Justicialist nationalism, which he had helped to establish alongside Perón when he served as Minister of Education from 1948 to 1950. He considered that his appointment was linked to the need to defend the doctrine and guide the people in a national solution, in the face of the "convulsive and revolutionary" state that prevailed.³¹ As he announced days after his inauguration as minister, the priority of the Republic was education and the mission of the Ministry was the "spiritual rescue of the country" that implied the restitution of Justicialist values: Christianity, the family, justice, discipline, independence and sovereignty, given that the Argentine school had lost itself in "a materialistic internationalism." The disappearance of the national being, for the minister, was much more serious than that of the land and the economy. He argued that "saving the soul of the country" was a requirement to recover everything else.³² Rather than train producers and conductors, the raison d'être of school and education was the nationalist and Christian transformation of the "left-handers", the control and humanization of animal reactions and "primal instincts"; the improvement of the "human person" so that he was able to transcend and coexist in an organized community based on the Argentine tradition.³³ The minister affirmed that human development was achieved with education, which allowed coexistence and instruction. He considered that the first should lead to the emergence of his divine origin from man. The liberal university professions, in his opinion, formed graduates frustrated by the lack of employment. He considered it necessary to promote a policy for the training of human resources through the creation of "higher education centres" at the tertiary level and the stimulation of technical university careers.³⁴

For Ivanisevich, the loss of effectiveness of the school institution was due to the fact that it had been directed by people whose tendencies were contrary to the National Doctrine and had been a consequence of the labor concessions recognized by the 1958 Teaching Statute.³⁵ Teaching work, for the minister, consisted of three tasks: the moral training required to convert "a seed into a human being;" that of being a moral and ethical example for his students; and that of sharing and complementing the educational actions of families. ³⁶ He postulated that the second obligation, which put teachers in the role of models, was of vital importance because "teaching" was "the example."³⁷ Based on these premises, the minister repeatedly questioned the teaching performance. He considered that although the right to strike existed, it was contrary to the pedagogical principles on which teaching was based on³⁸ and, given the circumstances and the state's efforts to restore wages, he considered it untimely and illegal.³⁹

In November 1974, a State of Siege was declared, and the end of the school year was brought forward in many schools due to the “subversive acts” committed by their students. Police and military guarded establishments in Capital Federal and Buenos Aires; the CTERA union was no longer considered as a core of the teaching union and, in its replacement, legal status was assigned to the Union of Argentine Teachers (^{ABBATTISTA, 2019}).

In May 1975, the minister considered that he had not managed to achieve the objective of his administration: the argentinization of the school.⁴⁰ At that time, he expressed his intention to follow the guidelines of the Triennial Plan despite opposing the regionalization of education and the administrative decentralization of the ministry, central guidelines of the document.⁴¹

In the months of June and July of that year, representatives of the National University and the ministers of all the provinces were summoned to "homogenize the conduct" and consider the draft of the Fundamental Law of Argentine Education (^{ABBATTISTA, 2019}). However, they did not reach a consensus on the matter. The provincial representatives spoke in favor of the recomposition of teacher salaries⁴² while Ivanissevich ratified his interest focused more on discipline and censorship than on propositional questions linked to theoretical and practical knowledge.

At the end of 1974, in a framework of lack of definition of educational policies and high student political conflict, CONET began to promote alternative exits and changes to those designed during the Taiana administration. The projects that, according to CONET officials, made it possible to combine elements of a comprehensive education with the demands of the job market were disregarded by Ivanissevich's cabinet. So the project that sought to rehabilitate the institutional format of the schools-factories was also rejected. The alternatives that they found in 1975 to create training modalities in accordance with some of the foundations that he held about technical education took up strategies already applied in the organization.

At the secondary level, the rejection presented by the new ministerial authorities to the replacement of the curricular structure of two cycles of three years, by a new one of three cycles of two years each led to their imposition, as a palliative, with compulsory courses of Technical Assistants that required graduates of the basic cycle to complete the "fourth year of term". According to the CONET authorities, many students abandoned their studies after completing the basic cycle and the lack of trained workforce at the “execution” level was evident, which could be satisfied with the increase in the graduation of these assistants.⁴³ For this purpose, the addresses of the ENETs were ordered to disseminate them and request their opening in the event of not having them. In addition, it was established that they should prepare the programs of the subjects of Specialty Technology and of the Workshop of the trade of the term course, considering the school infrastructure, the didactic standards and the needs of the educational market in the area.⁴⁴ The offer of these courses was significantly expanded during 1975. On the other hand, an exception regime was established that allowed students of the Higher Cycle to carry out practical activities in state, mixed or private industrial units and a Vocational Guidance Service was set up. The aforementioned exception regime allowed students who worked in fields related to the specialty studied to promote the Workshop or Practical Work subjects, which were dictated in the period opposite to their regular classes. In this way, it made it possible to maintain studies and employment, since it did not require attendance to practical classes. The new system favored the formation of a more appropriate technical professional profile and a better understanding of the working world, ensuring a contribution of human resources according to the needs of the economic-productive regions. The student had a follow-up of his work in the company by the school authorities, obtaining an annual qualification.⁴⁵ In mid-1975, CONET incorporated a Vocational Guidance and Assistance Service. The vocational guidance was recognized as one of the main facets of education and it was aspired to gradually implement it, reaching all students, to facilitate the teaching-learning process, overcome the difficulties presented by the passage from primary school to the Basic Cycle and provide elements that allow the student to make more appropriate choices.⁴⁶ It was recognized that its implementation implied a considerable economic effort for CONET but that it was inevitable.

After a year in office and discouraged by the relative advances in his spiritualist and nationalist education, Minister Oscar Ivanissevich resigned citing health problems. He was succeeded in office by Pedro José Arrighi. The new minister had served as auditor of the Provincial University of Mar del Plata and the National University of La Plata from which, according to student accusations, he had exercised indiscriminate repression. He was “deeply Catholic” and a friend of his predecessor in the educational portfolio (^{RODRÍGUEZ, 2014}; 2015). He conceived that the teaching work was to prepare the men of tomorrow for their encounters with the transcendent destiny and, in the specific conjuncture they were going through, to do justice for the dead victims of the guerrillas and subversion. He asked the teachers for serenity, understanding and the capacity for dialogue, since he considered that the strikes did not solve the problems that affected them.⁴⁷

In addition to this action against subversion, the minister postulated the need to enact an education law and to achieve the objectives of the Triennial Plan. However, he considered it necessary to rigorously evaluate the experiences and projects derived from it in order to adjust, correct, redirect or eliminate them.⁴⁸ The shortcomings of secondary education alarmed him, because he perceived it as ineffective in transmitting Christian and nationalist values ​​and imposing discipline, which made it a "recruiting and training ground for the guerrillas."⁴⁹ In addition, it had to be transformed to guarantee the training of technicians who would collaborate in the development of the national wealth. He announced that he would seek to regulate the admission of students to favor households with fewer resources and expand Project 13, which had been implemented since 1970 and supported a change in the labor regime of teachers (instead of working for hours, they were appointed by position).⁵⁰ With regard to technical education, he assured that, despite the economic limitations, he would put all his efforts to make it progress,⁵¹ proposing to finish the construction of eight CONET schools.⁵²

Conclusions

The ideological heterogeneity of the officials of the third Peronism was manifested in the contrasts of their speeches and profiles. In them divergent meanings and proposals were condensed that ratify the impossibility of conceiving a single image of the Peronist movement. Taking into account the profiles of the rulers and officials, the speeches and the change agendas, two clearly differentiated moments are recognized. Unlike the speeches of Cámpora and Taiana-in which a propositional intention prevailed over changes in the structures of the government of the system and of education-, those of Estela Martínez and Ivanissevich maintained a philosophical and spiritual profile, permanently appealed to the moral and Christian doctrine of Peronism and intended to provoke changes in behavior and in the consciences of teachers and students. In Arrighi's speeches, both components were combined: he manifested intentions related to the change of behaviors of the educational community, spiritualism, justice for those killed by the guerrillas and some projections of concrete actions in the system.

All the governors and ministers analyzed conceived that the educational system was in crisis, despite the critical factors that they enunciated differed. In the case of Cámpora and Taiana, it was linked to economic dependency and colonization, which required strengthening the link between education and work in secondary education; the training of appropriate human resources for effective development in the productive means would provide a way out of this situation. President Martínez de Perón and Ministers Ivanissevich and Arrighi, for their part, conceived that the root of the crisis was intrinsic to the system. The responsibility for the loss of the effectiveness of the transmission and of the conversion of the primary instincts rested with the teachers, whom Ivanissevich, repeatedly, described as subversive, strikers, intolerant and amoral. He considered that, before transforming the teaching proposals, it was a priority to lead to the change of habits and ideology of the teaching profession.

In the speeches of Cámpora, Taiana, Benítez and even in the reform projects of the CFE system and the Triennial Plan, school and education were conceived as positive in the development of man and the Nation, being linked and giving answers to the training of national human resources necessary for the development of the regional and national industrial economy. The "people" had a prominent place, being the architect and promoter of educational and curricular changes that would respond to regional demands, however, the people had to be trained to lead. Such optimism was absent in the speech of Estela Martínez or of her ministers, who expressed permanent distrust of the power of transmission of the school and the capacities of educators. Sometimes these institutions were presented as disruptive of the moral and Christian doctrine of Justicialism. In none of the discourses analyzed was secondary education linked by the latter to the economy. Education had to be transformed to recover its ideological, not economic, function, and for this reason they aspired to unify it throughout the Argentine territory. During these administrations, the aim of education was conceived in spiritual and transcendent terms.

Regarding the “critical” indicators, the ministers outlined educational political agendas focused on the purposes that, together with the leaders and certain officials, they attributed to education. Taiana's emphasis that education should enlist all social sectors to join effective work and decision-making powers laid the foundations for an agenda built progressively, based on the consensus reached in numerous meetings of the CFE. This agenda is still in force, being reworked after the presidential succession of Cámpora by Juan Domingo Perón. Compulsory education should be expanded by incorporating the basic cycle of secondary education and this should be diversified by granting students a job opportunity. Technical education was relevant in the discussions held within the framework of the CFE and technical training was proposed, in the Triennial Plan, as transversal to primary and secondary education. The universalization and modernization of the system would be reflected, in the field of technical and national secondary education, in the regionalization of education, institutional innovation, the transformation of the curricular structure and in the increase in the number of establishments.

The purpose that Ivanissevich assigned to education also marked the course of his actions. The axis of the minister's speeches was the crisis of the system caused by the immoral behavior of teachers, students and by the action of the "anti-school." Their efforts focused on imposing order and discipline in the conduct of the educational community. The concern to defeat the "anti-school" displaced the realization of an analysis about the validity and effect of the educational system, as well as the transformation projects of the secondary level agreed upon in the CFE and promoted by the CONET. Although he expressed his intention to follow the guidelines of the Triennial Plan, he opposed the regionalization of education that the document set out. The constitution of the educational political agenda was a joint construction between the minister and his closest officials, without the interference of the ministers of education of the jurisdictions or of Benítez, who continued to be the president of CONET. The CFE did not meet during his tenure, although there was a meeting of ministers in which, while the provincial authorities expressed support for teachers' rights, Ivanissevich reaffirmed his position on the damages caused by their actions.

Arrighi's educational agenda incorporated elements present in those of his predecessors. The intention to enact a Law, to respect the guidelines of the Triennial Plan, and to fight against subversion at all levels of the educational system appeared. There were some concrete projects with respect to the secondary level, although the universalist and modernizing project that had begun to be implemented in the context of CONET was not resumed. Regarding technical education, he limited himself to assuring their support for the conquest of a "promising future."

With respect to the scope of the speeches and projects that aspired to transform the secondary level in general and technical education in particular, it is important to note that early in the CONET scope, instances were created that enabled the participation of the educational community and of civil society in debates about the characteristics that teaching should assume. In this framework, the law that removed from the orbit of the organism a set of national technical schools was repealed; and the modernizing project of technical education was designed, which achieved changes in the curricular structure and institutional innovations. After the change in ministerial management, these projects were left unfinished and paralyzed. Alternative and palliative actions were carried out to those designed at the beginning of 1974. The changes made within CONET maintained its traditional curricular structure, strengthened the courses for Technical Assistants (fourth year of term) and the instances of professional training related to permanent education. In addition, an exception regime was created that enabled upper-cycle students to attend industries to carry out practical activities that, until then, were carried out in school workshops and a vocational service that was presented as alternative, compared to the impossibility of implementing the structural transformations of the secondary level.

In short, it is noted that there was a project that sought to radically transform CONET's secondary education that, although it included Cámpora's positions, was designed during the presidential term of Juan Domingo Perón and abandoned during that of his successor. The main ideas of this project lost their effectiveness in its implementation, which shows that the interests regarding the promotion of national technical education were not uniform, generating minor changes that allowed the organization to survive, but not to democratize or modernize education.