Among the multiple reforms planned by the Government of Gustavo Petro is the modification of Law 30 of 1992, by which the public service of Higher Education is organized. The Ministry of Education presented the draft of the bill and among its main points are the inclusion of ancestral knowledge within educational programs, education for people deprived of liberty, among other aspects.
On July 20, the draft of the statutory bill that seeks to regulate the fundamental right to education was presented and, on the other hand, the ordinary bill that will comprehensively reform Law 30 of 1992.
In this regard, Minister Aurora Vergara reported: “Together we are going to rewrite the history of education in Colombia to guarantee a fundamental right that allows future generations of Colombians to live with dignity in a vanguard knowledge society.”
One of the main components of the reform is the ethno-educational one, with which it seeks to bring higher education to the peripheral territories of the country where different indigenous and Afro-Colombian ethnic groups live.
Paragraph f of article 10 consigned in the draft of the reform presented by the Government speaks of the component of interculturality, which establishes: “The fundamental right to education must take into account the set of relationships between different social and cultural groups that lead to a dialectical process of constant recognition, interaction and learning of the different educational systems of their own and ancestral knowledge”.
Minister Vergara pointed out that one of the main objectives of the reform is to allow access to higher education in the territories so that it articulates with the University in your territory program, a National Government program that seeks to allow young people from the regions of the country progressive access to academic programs in higher education institutions.
In this regard, Andrés Mora Cortés, a professor at the Javeriana University, said in a dialogue with La República: “This proposal obeys the logic of creating their own universities in the territories, which could have a special character, and generate their own admission requirements and their own exams.”
In this regard, the document published by the Ministry of Education indicates that ethnic groups have the right to participate in the design of their own educational systems and the State will guarantee their participation through the prior consultation process, so that they themselves design, manage and regulate their institutions and programs in order to adapt them to their needs, histories and languages.
During his speech in San Andrés during the military parade on July 20, President Gustavo Petro said that the Raizal del Caribe University will be built on the island: “So that the youth does not leave these islands, then we have to raise awareness here, we have to build a real university, we have to guarantee that on the islands people can live based on knowledge (…) the memory of parents, grandparents and great-grandparents is transferred, as well as their music, their stories and their culture.”
Another point that drew attention in the draft is the educational proposal for people deprived of liberty. Article 19 of the document establishes higher education as a fundamental right for people who are in a penitentiary center.
“The State must guarantee the right to education of all persons deprived of liberty, to promote their comprehensive training and the full exercise of their rights,” reads the first version of the bill that is about to be filed in the Congress of the Republic. with Infobae