The dictatorship against the University Reform. Orientation of the university policy at the University of Buenos Aires (1976-1983)

Abstract

In this article we propose to analyze the orientation of the university policy during the last dictatorship in Argentina (1976-1983). We focus on its position on the University Reform of 1918 and its inheritance, as it was one of the main axes of diagnosis and intervention and despite this fact, this is a little studied aspect. We address the discourses of educational authorities at the national level and the supervisors of the University of Buenos Aires (UBA), the country's main higher education institution. Likewise, we describe the application of the dictatorial university policy by giving an account of the transformations that they sought to impose. Finally, we reconstruct some of the conflicts and disputes that took place among the university actors in Buenos Aires about the implemented policy.

In conclusion, we propose the anti-reform orientation of the dictatorial university policy developed in the UBA, which was fundamentally against two pillars: co-government and university autonomy. However, we state that despite the objectives proposed by the regime, the student movement recovered this tradition at the end of the dictatorial period. To carry out this study we resort to a methodological strategy of triangulation of primary sources of diverse character (ministerial documentation, materials of the Armed Forces, university regulations, speeches of authorities, press releases) and secondary ones.