With much enthusiasm and renewed energy, the Pascual Baburizza Agricultural Institute (IAPB), located in the district of Calle Larga, Los Andes Province, welcomed a new school year 2022, in which the entire Pascual community returned to meet face-to-face with a full schedule after two years working in hybrid mode.
The IAPB is a technical-professional secondary school, supported by the Luksic Educational Foundation, which teaches classes from seventh grade to fourth grade, specializing in agriculture and livestock. It has a 35-hectare property that serves as a classroom, where teachers of the technical area carry out practical activities for their students, who develop autonomy and enhance the use of technologies that promote their skills.
The institute places young people at the center of its pedagogical work as the focus of development and, in addition, centers on them the responsibility for institutional action. All this is carried out through the implementation of the Fontan Relational Education System (Serf), a methodology whose origin is Colombian.
“In the IAPB we seek to promote the autonomous and integral development of our students through the delivery of an education of excellence in a real productive environment, which allows them to realize their life projects,” explains José Gutiérrez, executive director of the Luksic Educational Foundation.
Teaching Methodology
Julio Fontán is the Colombian creator of the Fontán Relational Education System (Serf), an educational model taught at the IAPB, where students have the possibility of developing their own Personal Study Plan. In this way, students are responsible for organizing their learning processes.
According to Fontán, the basis of this methodology is respect, understood as the action of considering that all people are unique and different beings, with their own qualities. “Students develop differently, so educational models should not be static, but dynamic. They have to be changing as young people change,” says the specialist.
This is exactly what the IAPB applies, where they seek to respect each stage of development of their students and provide comprehensive support along with the best tools that will help them to build their personal and educational trajectories.
Boarding School
As an alternative for students who live far away, and with the objective of generating safe spaces with high level infrastructure, construction of a new boarding school began in 2020, which will have the capacity to accommodate 150 students who, in general, come from neighboring communities. The building is soon to be inaugurated. The rooms in the main building are also being remodeled and will be ready by the end of March.
To learn more about the IAPB, go to www.iapb.cl
