Where did the school go? Closure of rural schools and Bahia's educational guidelines

Abstract

This study analyzes the closure of rural schools in the municipalities of the Médio Rio de Contas Territory, Bahia, examining the contradictions between the normative progress of the Rural Education Guidelines and the persistence of political-administrative practices that undermine the right to education for rural populations. It is grounded in the understanding that the rural school is not merely a public facility but a space for the production of identity, belonging, culture, memory, and social organization. The research employs Historical-Dialectical Materialism as its theoretical-methodological framework, viewing rural school closures as an expression of the contradictions involving the State, territory, educational policy, and the societal project. Methodologically, the study adopts a documentary and interpretive approach, analyzing data on school closures from the Gepemdecc/Formacampo Observatory (covering the period from 2007 to 2024), as well as working group technical reports, educational legislation, and municipal guidelines. The results indicate that rural school closures reveal tensions between the rhetoric of valuing Rural Education and the actual implementation of educational policies in the municipalities of the territory in question—particularly where criteria of technical-administrative rationalization, school consolidation, and student transportation take precedence over the right of communities to retain their local schools.