Building Consensus for Education Reform in Colombia: A Path to Transformative Change

It is undeniable that education is one of the main commitments of this government and, in order to make the changes that the country needs in this sector materialize, it is essential that we build the necessary consensus to write this new chapter in the history of education in Colombia. On July 20, we placed the first versions of two bills in the hands of Colombian society. The first seeks, through a statutory law, progressively regulate the fundamental right to education from early childhood to higher education. The second, the reform of Law 30 of 1992, seeks to continue consolidating the higher education system.

With the contributions we receive from the actors involved, These projects are intended to serve as a navigation chart to respond to the challenges and unprecedented challenges facing education in this dizzying context of constant change due to digital transformation, the climate crisis and the danger of erosion of democratic values.

Both bills arose from a citizen participation process that we began more than nine months ago with various actors from the educational community, enabling spaces for dialogue and concertation with student and teacher movements, unions, and workers in various regions. These spaces were led by both teams from the Ministry of Education and the Presidential Youth Council, listening to more than 22,000 people.. We have also held spaces with different associations of the mixed system, rectors of the SUE, Redttu, Ascun, Aciet, Asiesca, Acesad and various private universities, congressmen, academics and experts in different fields. The opening to contributions from the citizenry, at the close of writing this text, registered more than 300 observations, via the Ministry’s website, which we are grateful for and are systematizing.

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As we advance in the spaces for dialogue, in reading the published texts and deliberating on this education reform process, it is essential that we build consensus. The versions of these bills filed in the Congress of the Republic must condense the vision that is most convenient for the present and future of education in Colombia.. It is essential to recognize that the first inequity in the system is the inequality of learning conditions in the first years of life. The proposed statutory law recognizes the moral duty that assists us as a country to prevent the place of birth from becoming, from the earliest years, a barrier to personal development, if not a sentence of poverty. Intellectuals such as Mauricio García Villegas, Juan Camilo Cárdenas and Leopoldo Fergusson have called this ‘educational apartheid’.

When the data from the Dane multidimensional poverty index are analyzed and, in addition to mapping them, they are correlated with the results of the Saber 11 tests at the municipal level, we find a manifestation of this reality. In the map on the left we see how this multidimensional poverty index is concentrated in all the municipalities, while in the one on the right we see the correlation between this multidimensional poverty index and the Saber 11 score. This reveals two important pieces of information. First, it tells us that the correlation coefficient between these two variables is 0.47 and that the Beta (ß) associated with that equation that explains Knowledge 11 through the MPI is -0.9.

In second place, Although this represents that throughout the country a negative relationship is observed between the multidimensional poverty index and the results of the Saber 11 tests, said coefficient is not the same for all regions. We see that departments such as La Guajira, Chocó, Nariño, Sur de Córdoba and Norte de Santander have more negative coefficients than in the rest of the country, which shows that, although all municipalities are negatively affected by the multidimensional poverty index with Regarding the Saber 11 tests, there are some regions for which this impact is much more negative. This does not have to continue to be so, it is essential to make structural decisions to substantially reduce these educational inequities.

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With this commitment, we honor the commitments that the nation has assumed through various international instruments, such as the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development Goals, which in its fourth objective establishes the importance of “Guaranteeing inclusive, equitable education and quality and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all”. Another of the challenges that this national dialogue has posed to us is the need to ratify in public policy the mission of higher education to become the engine of regional development.

For this reason, from the Ministry we created the ‘University in your territory’ strategy, which is made up of urgent and ambitious programs such as the expansion of quotas in the Higher Education System, and the Program for Immediate Transit to Higher Education. The latter, with an investment of $87,000 million, will benefit 30,000 11th grade students in 72 subregions of the country, prioritizing education in rural areas with the greatest disadvantages such as those I mentioned previously, articulating secondary education with higher education, strengthening education technical and technological and its connection with the labor market. This strategy also includes the development of the National Plan for Educational Spaces as the center of community life, with an investment of $5 billion for the creation of new educational centers in the departments with the greatest learning gaps.

We also made progress in the transformation of the Quality Assurance System in Higher Education, simplifying procedures and processes that have become an obstacle to the development of innovative and relevant programs for the territories and for the country. This is also a commitment to consolidate a Higher Education System that recognizes the importance of university well-being to ensure academic success and, with it, the development of skills for a fuller, more productive and socially responsible life. In short, an education that recognizes the struggles of the past and looks optimistically at the possibilities of the future.that promotes commitment to the needs of the territories and the dialogue of knowledge, that trains for digital life and global citizenship, that builds peace and democracy, that encourages the training and dignity of teaching work, and that is comprehensive , inclusive, intercultural and anti-racist.

These reflections, so far, are the prologue to what we aspire to be a great national pact for quality and relevant education, a historic opportunity that is putting this sector, a priority for the Government, at the center of the national debate. Today, the call to society is to join this collective construction to create a new education model that allows Colombia to be positioned on the international stage and assume with height the challenges that the technological globalization of the 21st century poses for us. Let’s build together a true knowledge society that is connected to the structural problems of the regions and contributes to the well-being of the people, the country’s productivity and sustainable development, through science, the arts, technology and information. innovation.

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Improving the system and allowing the path of education to be the way to generate the great transformations that the country requires, should be the common purpose that unites us as a nation. I invite you to continue contributing with your reflections so that we can write a new chapter in the history of education in Colombia from the perspective of rights, respect for difference and diversity of thought, recognition of the dignity of each person, care for public goods. , and financial and territorial equity.PS: I thank Ana Carolina Quijano Valencia for the service she provided to the country as Vice Minister of Higher Education and I wish her much success in the new chapter of her professional life that is beginning.
* People interested in making contributions to the bills can send them through the page www.mineducacion.gov.co

AURORA VERGARA FIGUEROA, PhD
Minister of National Education