Draft:Instituto de Profesores Artigas

Instituto de Profesores Artigas is a school for the formal education of teachers to ready them for secondary educaton, somthing that had previously been lacking in Uruguay.

History
The institute was created to prepare teachers for secondary education. Until it's creation there was very few education possibilities to prepare teachers in Uruguay. In the 1930s the number of secondary students had risen significantly and the qualifications for teachers were being formally established. These new regulations and demand caused the creation of the institute.

Background
Until the creation of the Artigas Teachers Institute, there was no systematic training of teachers for secondary education. The majority of the teachers were professionals who graduated from the University of the Republic or were self-taught who met certain requirements and made it possible to cover the needs of teachers.

In 1934 the modality of attached teachers began and it was only between 1944 and 1945 that the first precedent of institutionalizing teacher training was regulated. The aspiring teachers had to undergo a two-year systematic training in their specialization and carry out teaching practice alongside outstanding professors. The growing expansion of Secondary students made it necessary to think not only about increasing the number of teachers, but also about specializing them into fields.

Creation​​​
The Teachers' Institute was created by Law on July 2, 1949 and began operating two years later, in 1951, led by its first director and founder, Antonio Grompone. Inspired by the model of the Ecole Normale Supérieure of Paris, the newly created institute sought to train teachers based on excellence and avant-garde at both a theoretical and practical level. The ideal was based on training a professional both in the field, and of the theory of each discipline and in educational practice, in contrast to the Faculty of Humanities model, which had been promoted by the Uruguayan philosopher Carlos Vaz Ferreira. ​The institute's training plan during the four years focused on three strong cores:


 * Pedagogical training common to all specialties.
 * Training in the chosen specialty.
 * Teaching practice of two years with a teacher of outstanding competence and one year - the last of the training - with a group led by the student themselves under the assistance of a didactics teacher.

From its origin, the institution did not have autonomy; In the beginning it depended on the Council of Secondary Education and was headed by a director advised by a commission. Later, thanks to the struggle of students, teachers and graduates, the Advisory and Consultative Council (CAC) was created made up of the three orders.

Interventions
The Artigas Teachers Institute was raided repeatedly during the sixties and seventies. These interventions were accompanied by arrests and dismissals of officials and teachers, many of whom also had to go into exile.

On October 9, 1967, the Institute was raided within the framework of the implementation of the Prompt Security Measures decreed by President Oscar Gestido.

The operation was carried out by grenadiers, who proceeded to arrest all the teachers, students and officials present, including the Director of the Institute.

The Bell
Converted into a symbol of its historical memory, the IPA bell rang at the beginning and end of each day, since the founding of the Institute. The object was removed on the night of September 5, 1973 by former secretary Eduardo Pereda, when the government decreed the intervention of the Artigas Teachers Institute, after the Coup d'état. Pereda, then being a young official, kept it for forty years—including her stay in exile—and engraved inscriptions with important dates as a way to rescue the memory and preserve the history of the Institute.

The bell has been cataloged as a symbol of identity and resistance, and was delivered on June 4, 2014 to the Central Board of Directors of the National Administration of Public Education by Eduardo Pereda, in a formal ceremony held in the Assembly Hall of the Artigas Teachers Institute.

Building​​​
The current building of the Artigas Professors' Institute was built and inaugurated on July 31, 1939, the work of architect Octavio de los Campos, to house the headquarters of the then Women's University, later the Batlle y Ordóñez Institute. In 1979, said building became the headquarters of the then National Teaching Institute, housing the Normal Institute No. 1, the Higher Teaching Institute and the Artigas Teachers Institute, the latter keeping the building.

Notable Alumni

 * Cesar Campodónico


 * Blanca Rodriguez


 * Eugenio Coseriu


 * Carlos Real de Azúa


 * Jose Pedro Diaz


 * Lauro Ayestarán


 * Dolores Castillo


 * Jose D'Elia


 * José Claudio Williman


 * Benjamin Nahum


 * German Rama


 * Jorge Medina Vidal


 * Circe Maia


 * Ana Frega


 * Emir Rodríguez Monegal


 * Gerardo Caetano


 * Cristina Peri Rossi


 * Monica Olave