*Ignores evolution of this service and its needs
*Opportunity to improve quality and coverage is lost
One of the oldest and most serious problems in Colombia is that its educational system is disconnected from development needs and ignores the dramatic transformations that science and technology have brought about in today’s world. Clear proof of this is that one of its main components, higher education, is regulated by a law that is 30 years old, from which multiple and very costly inefficiencies emanate.
Another worrying aspect is that, although Colombia invests a high percentage of GDP in education year after year, the effort does not translate into substantial improvements in quality, not least because of the capture of the system by sectoral unions that have drawn a tight fence around the resources, to allocate them mainly to one link in the chain and to satisfy their labor demands. They have also been inflexible in preventing serious evaluations of the performance of their affiliates, essential to achieve improvements in the quality of basic education.
These problems, widely studied and debated from different spheres, could worsen significantly if the educational reform presented by the Petro government in the current legislature, through the Minister of Education, Aurora Vergara Figueroa, were to be approved.
Surprisingly, the Executive did not present one, but two bills. The first, of a statutory nature, seeks to convert education into a fundamental right. The current system has been maintained with shocks, but with stability, based on the provisions of the Constitution in educational matters and the dictates of the General Education Law. Although the modification seems attractive at first sight, it is necessary to understand that it requires calculated and sufficient financing to assume the enormous obligations and investments in human talent, equipment and infrastructure that are needed to guarantee universalization and to meet the demands on key issues. of access and quality. If this is not the case, the educational system could become a source of guardianships and judicial actions, broader and more constant than the health system.
In fact, the disaster of this reform to Law 30 of 1992 begins with the evidence that they did not even minimally take into account the recommendations and conclusions of multiple available studies, carried out by great experts in the field, such as the Commission of Wise Men of 1994 or the of 2019, or the recent Dialogues of the Future, of the Javeriana University and Connect, in which 80 people from 19 higher education institutions, 380,000 students and business associations worked for two years, in search of ways and options for Colombians to we have “comprehensive, transformative, innovative, excellent, interdisciplinary and quality training”.
Digitization, the development of artificial intelligence and globalization have created in the 30 years of validity of the Law 30 great challenges for universities and humanity in matters such as innovation, science and technology, and entrepreneurship. In which, certainly, Colombia is lagging behind. The old schemes withered away and were replaced by continuing education programs or short courses.
From this perspective, the reform pursued by the Government lacks ambition, vision, strategy, complexity and future. It is reduced to bureaucratic issues, minor if you like, some of which, such as the disappearance of State tests, the reduction of the scope of activities of Icetex or the deliberate ignorance of the fundamental interests of private HEIs, could cause more harm than good. In short, it is not about an education reform, but one limited to bureaucratic, union and tangential aspects that do not touch the core of the problem.
That is why the proposed educational reform has been rejected by almost all associations, higher education institutions, rectors and expert opinion makers on the subject. It is not a political pulse of the hour or another of the many controversies of the political polarization that the country suffers. It is about not wasting an extraordinary opportunity to update and strengthen the educational system so that it is the instrument of social, economic and cultural promotion that current and future generations need. It would not be embarrassing, but rather commendable if the Government were considering again and starting the process of building a new project that integrates the state of the art on the subject and the true experts in education.