History of South America

Spill Magisterial presents volumes 11 to 15 of the Peruvian Educational Thought Collection

This Thursday, March 27, starting at 7pm., the Editorial Fund of Spill Magisterial will present the last five volumes of the monumental Peruvian Educational Thought Collection , in the auditorium of the Lima Chamber of Commerce. This is an unprecedented publication that tells, in 15 carefully documented and edited books, the history of education in Peru from the Incas to the present. These last five volumes cover the recent history of our educational process, from 1933 to 2011, more than eight decades of evolution whose knowledge will be very helpful for researchers, teachers and the general public to understand how we got to the current state of the sector, the marches and counter-marches of the educational reforms of the 50s (Manuel A. Odría's government), 60-70s (the Educational Reform promoted by the military government) and the efforts of the governments after the return to democracy. A material of great value, which sees the light thanks to the commitment of Spill Magisterial and the work of its Editorial Committee, headed by the prestigious historian Manuel Burga Díaz.


How was Peruvian education in the 1940s? What impact did the Great School Units have, today “emblematic schools”? What did the Educational Reform of 1972 really consist of? What were the direct causes of the current state of this sector?

All these questions –and others- are answered from a historical and comprehensive perspective, in the last five volumes of the Peruvian Educational Thought Collection , a transcendental editorial effort by Derrama Magisterial that traces, in 15 carefully written and documented books, the evolution of educational thought in Peru, from the Inca period to the present day.

This project, which brings together 19 prestigious Peruvian researchers and educators, was born in 2009 at the initiative of Derrama Magisterial, in compliance with one of its main institutional policies:support for research through significant contributions to the literature on education in Peru.

After five years of hard academic work, the collection is finally ready, available to all those interested in understanding the historical process of our education. Due to its size, the collection has been presented in stages:volumes 1 to 5 at the Lima International Book Fair and from 6 to 10, at the Ricardo Palma Book Fair , in July and October of last year.

Now it is the turn of the last five volumes (from 11 to 15), which will be presented this Thursday, March 27, from 7pm., at the Samuel Gleiser Katz Auditorium in the Lima Chamber of Commerce (Av. Giuseppe Garibaldi 396, Jesús María).

This final section of the collection is of special interest as it contains information on contemporary educational efforts. As the psychologist and social researcher Ricardo Cuenca Pareja, author of volume 15, Change, continuity and search for consensus, 1980-2011, mentions:“Unlike the previous volumes, which are purely historical in nature, in this case we are talking about many protagonists that are still among us and the reconstruction of recent history also supposes the perceptions and interests of people and political groups that will be more or less reflected in the book.”

For his part, the historian Antonio Zapata Velasco, said he felt "very proud to have participated in this project that Derrama Magisterial makes available to the community of teachers in Peru, a remarkable effort for the benefit of the national teaching profession”. Zapata is the author of volume 11, entitled Militarisms and indigenous teachers, 1933-1956; which contains an interesting selection of pedagogical texts by José María Arguedas and Luis E. Valcárcel.

In these volumes, thePeruvian Educational Thought Collection compiles the pedagogical work of illustrious educators and thinkers such as Jorge Basadre, Carlos Cueto Fernandini, Luis Alberto Sánchez, Augusto Salazar Bondy, among others; and analyzes in depth the scope of the ambitious Educational Reform project of 1972, promoted by the military government of Juan Velasco Alvarado, in which the most prominent intellectuals met to seek a better educational development plan. This period is covered in volume 13, Educating in times of change, 1968-1975, written by historian Patricia Oliart Sotomayor, professor of Latin American Studies at the University of Newcastle (England).

Furthermore, one of the books is entirely dedicated to analyzing the issue of interculturality and education, in a journey through analyses, reflections, experiences and documents - ranging from official texts to popular songs and poems – compiled and studied by Lucy Trapnell Forero and Virginia Zavala Cisneros, who find interesting data regarding the State's attitude towards cultural and linguistic diversity in different historical contexts. The volume is entitled Educational Dilemmas in the Face of Diversity, XX-XXI Centuries.

The presentation will be in charge of Dr. Manuel Burga Díaz, Coordinator of the Editorial Committee of the collection; who will be accompanied by representatives of Spill Magisterial.