Instituto Fronesis - Pedagogía, comunicación y sociedad

Creamos Fronesis en Quito, en 1991, y organizamos este sitio web en 1999, pensando únicamente en concentrar nuestros escritos y permitir su acceso público y gratuito. A lo largo de estos años, el sitio creció y se diversificó, hasta convertirse en un verdadero portal.

Este es un sitio abierto, que articula diversos campos de conocimiento y de acción, y diversos ámbitos - nacional, latinoamericano y mundial. Busca recoger el espíritu de la fronesis, al plantearse como una herramienta al servicio de una amplia gama de sectores y actores, capaz de generar y difundir información, alentar el pensamiento crítico y el debate social en torno a la información y el conocimiento, y promover el intercambio y la fertilización de experiencias, el encuentro y la organización ciudadana a nivel nacional, regional e internacional.

Este portal aloja el Pronunciamiento Latinoamericano por una Educación para Todos, una iniciativa latinoamericana surgida en el año 2000, que se volvió proceso a través de la red virtual Comunidad E-ducativa. Aquí se aloja también un pedazo de la historia institucional del Ministerio de Educación y Culturas del Ecuador (MEC) durante la breve gestión del Movimiento de Unidad Plurinacional Pachakutik (PK) en el gobierno (2003); rota la alianza política, el nuevo ministro y el partido en el gobierno eliminaron del sitio del MEC toda la información relativa a la gestión de PK.

Dada la fragmentación y la descoordinación inter-agencial dentro de la cooperación internacional, así como la desinformación ciudadana al respecto, decidimos juntar y dar seguimiento aquí a las principales iniciativas internacionales para la educación suscritas en los últimos treinta años por gobiernos y agencias internacionales.

Este portal, y las diversas redes y espacios ciudadanos que alimenta y de los cuales se alimenta, son un servicio público hecho de manera gratuita, en base a trabajo voluntario y sin financiamiento. Esto nos permite la autonomía de pensamiento y de acción indispensable para producir conocimiento, debatir ideas, ejercer la crítica y desarrollar alternativas al modelo neoliberal y al pensamiento único que lo sostiene.

About this Portal

We created fronesis in 1991 and organized this web site in 1999, just thinking of a place to concentrate our writings and publications and to provide free and public access to them. Over the years, the site grew and became a portal..

This is an open portal that reflects is accessible to any user and reader, and that articulates our fields of work and our action at binational (Argentina-Ecuador), regional and international level. The portal reflects the spirit of fronesis by attempting to serve a wide spectrum of sectors and actors, by generating and disseminating information and knowledge, by promoting critical thinking and social debate on such information and knowledge, and by encouraging the exchange and cross-fertilization of experiences, social encounter and social organization nationally, regionally and internationally.

Besides face-to-face activities on the ground, we provide a number of e-services including the moderation of several virtual networks: Comunidad E-ducativa, Ed-Community (in English), Debateducacion and Ecuador-Lee-Escribe.

Fronesis Blogs include:

This portal reflects many of our convictions and values:

We believe that the analysis and transformation of reality must be historic and systemic, requiring multisectoral and integral approaches. Thus, this is not a sectoral portal; it amalgamates alternative thinking on economic, social, educational and cultural issues.
We believe in the need to think and act locally, and to think and act globally, synchronizing the local, the national and the global, and in the importance acknowledging linguistic diversity and the need for multilingual communication. Thus, this is a Latin American portal but connected to the world, and at least bilingual in its presentation and in some basic texts.
We believe in starting from what exists, learning from diversity, breaking with institutional barriers, and galvanizing efforts. Thus, we deal with and encourage the participation of all actors: governmental and non-governmental, public and private, social movements and grassroots organizations, international agencies, initiatives from the South and from the North.
We belive in the value of gratitude, example and memory. Thus, we reserve here a special place to honour Latin American educators and thinkers that have left us an invaluable legacy of ideals and of struggle for a different society and a different education.
We believe in the extraordinary potential of arts and laughter as political and communicational weapons. That is why we created a special place for some of our brilliant illustrators and cartoonists.
We believe in the importance of those who dedicate to teaching, to information and to communication activities, and in the need to assist them with alternative practical tools. This is the purpose of the section "Calendar with Contents", under development, a collaborative effort aiming to help teachers, jounalists and communicators.

This portal houses the Latin American Statement for Education for All, a Latin American initiative born in 2000, which became process thanks to Comunidad Educativa, a virtual community created for its signatories. It also houses a piece of the institutional history of Ecuador's Ministry of Education and Cultures, during the short period that the Plurinational MovementPachakutik co-governed the country (2003); after the collapse of the political alliance, the information related to this administration was eliminated from the Ministry website by the new authorities..

Given the fragmentation and lack of co-ordination of international co-operation, as well as the lack of public information on such co-operation, we decided to gather, display and follow-up here the main international initiatives related to education signed over the past three decades by international agencies and national governments.

This portal, and the diverse networks and virtual fora that feed and are fed by it, are a public service, done for free, with voluntary work and without funding. This allows us the autonomy of thought and of action required for producing knowledge, debating ideas, exercising criticism and developing alternatives to the neoliberal model and its dominant thinking.