Bogotá has the lowest dropout rate in recent years, with a rate of 1.29% during 2021. This is determined by the figures of the Ministry of Education, the entity that leads the Active Search for the out-of-school population in the city. EL NUEVO SIGLO explains how these conferences will work.
This year the professionals of the ‘Active Search’ strategy will be touring the city for four months to find people who want to study and who need a place to access the district’s official schools. The search will run through July.
In total, more than 100 neighborhoods of 40 Zonal Planning Units (UPZ) will be visited, in all locations of the city.
“We will reach every corner of the country’s capital, bringing the official educational offer. We don’t want any boy, girl, youth or adult to be left without studying and that’s why we risk everything”, said teacher Edna Bonilla Sebá, Secretary of Education for the District.
In 2020, the year the Covid-19 pandemic began, 1,897 students returned to school through the strategy. In 2021 the number increased to 2,370 and in 2022 nearly 5,100 people returned to the classroom. For this year, the Ministry of Education expects to be able to link more than 4,000 people to the city’s public education system and thus reach the four-year goal of linking more than 13,000 students.
How is the ‘Active Search’ carried out?
The strategy has two working modalities: the first is face-to-face, through tours, and the second is non-face-to-face through calls and emails.
In the face-to-face modality, professionals in the territories are involved, who through tours identify people who are not studying and express their desire to resume their studies. In the ‘physical characterization’ format, the basic data of the person is recorded, their family composition, characteristics, the reasons that led to their dropping out of school and the necessary support for their return and continuity in the city’s official schools.
In this modality, there is also the Mobile Registration Unit, which accompanies the search and is located at strategic points in the different neighborhoods, parks or squares, to provide personalized attention to families who come to request a new quota, transfers, withdrawals , data updating and other requirements for the enrollment process and school mobility.
In the remote modality, students who are not studying are identified and contacted by phone or email, with the aim of offering them alternative places so that they return to school and do not abandon their studies.
STEM Olympics
The Bogotá Mayor’s Office together with the District Education Secretariat (SED) invited girls, boys and young people to participate in the STEM Olympics, a project that seeks to develop skills in STEM areas (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics , for its acronym in English), which allow the construction of critical, purposeful and innovative citizenships.
The Olympics seek to propose solutions to the problems that Bogotá faces on issues such as water and biodiversity, renewable energy, sustainable production and climate change, through the formation of student teams accompanied by teachers in three categories: pre-infantile, infantile, junior and youthful.
The Bogotá 2023 STEM Olympics are a competition where different teams, in different categories, learn from the STEM educational approach to overcome challenges associated with real problems in their particular context to build an innovative solution.
The problems are framed in an Olympic scenario that, depending on the category, will address one of the following topics within the framework of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs):
- Water and biodiversity
- Renewable energy
- sustainable production
- Climate change
What are the participation categories?
For 2023, four (4) participation categories have been established:
- Pre-infant category: made up of teams of preschool, first and second grade students.
- Children’s Category: made up of teams of students from the third to fifth years of Basic Primary.
- Junior Category: made up of teams of students from grades six to eight.
- Youth category: made up of teams of students from ninth to eleventh grade.
Each category, in turn, is assigned an Olympic setting, in such a way that the participating teams have the opportunity to exercise age-appropriate skills and abilities, responding to the environmental problems of their context and corresponding to their learning path.
The registration of the teams will be until April 25 at 4:00 pm, through the form provided on the page www.redacademica.edu.co. Any receipt of information outside the indicated date, time and platform will not be taken into account.
Bogotá, the first city in the country with a Rural Education Policy
Bogotá is the first city in Colombia to implement a Rural Education Policy that is already benefiting more than 14,000 students and 1,600 teachers from the 28 rural schools in the capital.
This policy aims to guarantee students complete educational trajectories, articulation of rural schools with multiple sectors, advance in the single day, involve families in all processes and strengthen training for coexistence and peace.
To develop the Rural Education Policy, the city allocated 20,000 million pesos, thanks to the District Development Plan, resources that have allowed rural schools to advance their pedagogical and productive processes from their reality, significantly reducing dropout rates.
Among the 28 educational institutions is the rural school José Celestino Mutis.
This school, which is located in the town of Ciudad Bolívar, strengthens the link between the students and the countryside.
The students of this institution sow the land and create products from what they harvest, in addition, they can market the result of their work in the educational community and in spaces such as the Mercados Campesinos de Bogotá.