Programas institucionales, dispositivos de acompañamiento

The purpose of this article is to describe a research experience of institutional character, carried out at the National University Lomas de Zamora (Argentina), specifically at the Faculty of Economic Sciences. This project originated with the detection of an important number of students leaving the graduate course, situation which was registered as continuous and permanent along the years. Different strategic axes and a set of actions based on formative quality criteria were designed and planned at the beginning and during the first years of the career, implementing the Articulation Program with Middle Education, in order to integrate the cultures of secondary and higher education including the Program for the Retention of Students, which was in charge of the immediate promotion of actions of effective implementation to reduce student dropout during the first years of university. Both programs contributed to the levelling or introductory courses, which aimed at providing information about the university system and at the same time to reinforce previous knowledge essential for starting the graduate studies. The design of a path through institutional programs allowed to work on the integral development of the student as a learning area and to focus on the issue with specific actions that included effective orientation and information processes even before the beginning of university life and during its first years.