Twenty-three young people and adults completed their secondary education thanks to the UNR Otra Vuelta program. Some 23 students received certificates for completion of the course.
The virtual high school of the Universidad Nacional de Rosario (UNR) continues to grow, increasing its number of graduates, highlighting the life stories of young people and adults who, with effort, manage to complete an important stage of their educational training.
On Tuesday, December 10, in the assembly hall of the Faculty of Engineering, 23 students received their high school graduation diplomas as part of the Otra Vuelta program. The ceremony also celebrated the end of the 2024 course for the 400 students who participate in virtual and in-person courses every day to complete their studies.
The program is an initiative of the UNR that began operating in 2022 with three classrooms and almost sixty students. In 2023, it was expanded to five virtual classrooms and another seven located in different parts of the city. And this year, virtual classrooms were offered to students from the towns of Villa Gobernador Gálvez, San Jorge and El Trébol.
UNR Rector Franco Bartolacci highlighted the students' efforts "because at this time of life when there are many things to attend to and other commitments to take on, it is difficult to make the decision to return to school and sustain it over time. I want to ask you not to give up and to help us multiply by telling your story because that inspires, encourages and gives strength to other people who also have to take the step."
Bartolacci said that the University is much more than an institution that accredits excellent training in different professions, more than research and production of knowledge, “it is above all a tool that helps transform the life of our society.” “We believe that there is nothing that helps us solve problems better than much more public and excellent education. May the heart of the Public University open to many more people and may you be the example for those who will arrive.”
Elisabet Torres is one of this year's 23 graduates. She is 42 years old, a single mother and lives in the Belgrano neighborhood. “I stopped studying in my teens, then I started again many times, I wanted to finish at an Eempa, but I didn't have the patience anymore, that's why I say that this moment is very special,” she says. In her case, the work schedule to attend an Eempa was the main reason that she stopped finishing her studies. Until last year, a neighbor told her about this UNR plan and she decided to try it once again. “It was hard for me, because it requires responsibility, but today the truth is that I feel very proud, for myself and for my daughter, it is an example for her to know that you should never give up, and that any stone that gets in your way you have to kick it and keep going,” she said.
Diego Castro is 39 years old and had dropped out of high school in the Rucci neighborhood in his third year. “A year and a half after dropping out, I tried again at an Eempa, but I started working at night in gastronomy and I couldn’t make it. And then the years went by,” he recalled and said that his sister, who studies Anthropology at the UNR, gave him the link to sign up for Otra Vuelta. “The virtual option seemed very interesting to me, because although finishing high school online exists in other places, they are private and fee-based, and in this case I was interested in the possibility of taking classes from home and listening to the class in a fairly autonomous way,” Castro concluded.
The Otra Vuelta Program establishes a curriculum for a Bachelor's Degree in Social Sciences, a modality of permanent education for young people and adults - distance education, approved by Resolution No. 896/2022 of the Superior Council of the UNR, provides for the deployment of didactic and curricular strategies that recognize the diversity of starting points of students. Digital technologies and audiovisual resources are used intensively with educational intent, with a mixed course format: 70% under virtual modality, through the University campus - Communities Platform, and 30% of face-to-face meetings.