In Bogotá, according to the national quality of life survey of the National Administrative Department of Statistics (Dane) in 2023, 47.5 percent of young people access higher education, that is, less than half. That is why the District has been developing several initiatives to guarantee access to universities and job training for students.
(Also read: Mayor Galán announces that he will deliver 10,000 social housing subsidies in Bogotá during his government).
Precisely, the District Agency for Higher Education, Science and Technology (Atenea) opened registration this Friday to access the first call for ‘Youth to E’, which offers 2,700 scholarships in 44 universities in the city. Its director, Víctor Saavedra, explained to EL TIEMPO the details of the program.
That is the total of scholarships for the second semester of the year. We are going to have a new call in November for the first semester of 2025.
What does ‘Youth to the E’ mean?
‘Youth to E’ is the program for access to post-secondary education, it is access to universities and training for work. This Friday we are going to start a call for 2,700 scholarships at 44 universities in the city.
What conditions must young people have to access these places?
There are three basic conditions to apply to this call. First, they must have graduated from a school in the city of Bogotá, public or private. Second, they must be under 28 years old at the time the call closes, which is May 3. And the third condition is to have taken the Saber 11 tests.
Is that going to be the total number of scholarships or will more be announced soon?
That is the total of scholarships for the second semester of the year. We are going to have a new call in November for the first semester of 2025.
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Víctor Saavedra, director of Atenea.
Photo: Athena
During the government period we will have 32,000. These scholarships cover the entire tuition fee for students and support support; we provide students with a minimum salary per semester. We will have calls for each semester until we finish our term.
Are these scholarships only for young people who want to study a professional career?
It is not only for professional careers, this is a program that will include training for work. In Bogotá, of every 100 young people who graduate, 36 do not enter higher education or job training the following year. We are talking about 27,000 young people in the city who every year increase the list in the country of young people who are neither studying nor working. That is the population that we want to concentrate in this program, and that is why we are offering 32,000 scholarships, this being the first call.
We are currently closing the participatory process of the District Development Plan and the issues that matter most to citizens, after security, are access to employment and access to higher education. This is a program that seeks not only access to higher education, we are going to have university scholarships and university technical and technological scholarships, but also training for work and we want to give great emphasis to the permanence and employability of the program.
In Colombia, experts have been insisting that the job training system must be improved in quality and access.
What advice would you give to those parents and those young people who aspire to a scholarship for a professional education or a technological career?
In Colombia, experts have been insisting that the job training system must be improved in quality and access. Here we have different entities, SENA is training for work, but even today in Colombia we have many professionals facing technical and technological training.
My specific recommendation to parents of students is to think about future careers. At this time there are very big changes in the labor and educational markets. For example, engineering, the exact natural sciences, the health area, sales, are very important careers for the future. There are big changes, we have to think that these professionals will be working in 30, 40, 50 years and we have to prepare them for the future.
Engineering, the exact natural sciences, the health area, sales, are very important careers for the future.
Photo: iStock
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The World Economic Forum, the World Bank and at Atenea we see that there are some careers that are the most relevant. The entire core of engineering, university and technical programs, particularly systems engineering. We also need people who work in the cloud, in cybersecurity.
Are there three-year courses for that too?
Yes, there are technical, professional technical, and university technological careers. They are programs of one, two, three, four or five years, depending on the category.
We currently have an offer from the National Pedagogical University, because this program has a strategy to strengthen public education, including the Sena. We also have private universities on offer, there is the Externado, Rosario, Sabana, los Andes, Manuela Beltrán, 44 universities throughout the city. You can find the complete offer of all the courses and scholarships we have on the Atenea website.
How is that percentage divided that allows a young person to have a good chance of accessing one of these scholarships?
Each candidate can access, they must choose three programs. One university, one technical or technological and a free choice program. We evaluate applicants with a maximum score of 100. In that maximum score, the first component is the Saber 11 tests, which weigh 40 percent. The second component is Sisbén, economic vulnerability. If the student is in Sisbén A, she receives 40 points; Sisbén B, 30 points and Sisbén C, 20 points.
These 2,700 scholarships cost 130,000 million pesos. It is an investment that Bogotá makes in this cohort, which begins in the second semester.
The third component is special populations and vulnerability. We give women five points more than men. In addition, mothers who are heads of households, transgender people, disabled people, victims, reintegrated people, army veterans, ethnic minorities, all of these populations receive between 5 and 15 additional points.
And finally, 5 points to promote programs from the District of Bogotá, for IDRD athletes, for those who are in the Parceros program, youth leaders and the University program at your school. We give all of them 5 additional points. The maximum score that a person can achieve is 100 points.
How much is it going to cost the city to carry out this first part of the program?
These 2,700 scholarships cost 130,000 million pesos. It is an investment that Bogotá makes in this cohort, which begins in the second semester. However, the entire program, ‘Jóvenes a la E’, has an investment of 1.7 billion pesos, only for scholarships.
What does that scholarship mean? What benefits do students have?
Students do not have to pay anything at all. The District pays all of the tuition, and we don’t pay the universities 100 percent, we pay them 70 percent of the cost of tuition. The student does not have to pay degree fees, leveling courses, or expenses during the study. In addition to that, Atenea finances maintenance support of a minimum salary per semester for students.
Of the 2,700 scholarships, almost half are in the area of engineering, architecture and urban planning.
Foto:istockphoto
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When it says that the District pays the students, it means that they are the people of Bogotá…
From the Bogota residents’ tax, and it is a very profitable investment for the cities. This is one of the programs with the highest return for the future. Students, by accessing good quality programs, will improve their access to employment and that has a very high return on the city’s investment.
And of the 2,700 scholarships, almost half are in the area of engineering, architecture and urban planning. We also have in all areas of knowledge, in economics and administration, fine arts, social and human sciences, mathematics and natural sciences and health sciences.
How is the inscription process?
It is done through the Atenea website (www.agenciatenea.gov.co). The first step is that they must fill out the virtual resume, enter the information, present the three programs they want to aspire to. If you have questions, you can ask the Atenea service center, which is in the International Center, in Bavaria Park. We also have service points in the Supercades and we are going to have 15 information sessions in different locations during this week. The information about these information sessions by location is on the Atenea page. In addition, you can call the call center, we are open and ready at this time to answer the questions of all applicants.
From May 6 to June 6 the information will be validated, on June 7 the results of this call will be published, and from June 7 to July 15 the process of formalizing the scholarship with registration will be carried out. Classes will begin with the calendar of each higher education institution.
Bogotá has a challenge for productivity and it is the level of English. In Bogotá, neither young people nor adults have a good level of English
Is Atenea only dedicated to managing scholarships?
No, we in Athena have two missions. One is to deepen access to post-secondary education in Bogotá. The second is to strengthen science and technology in the city.
In the second mission what are they doing?
We are looking to increase funding for science in the city. Science funding has been falling in Bogotá and the country. In 2018, for example, 90,000 million pesos were financed per year in science projects in Bogotá and in recent years we are reaching almost zero financing resources, so the centers are having to apply for international calls. It is very important that this year’s royalty resources are approved, that we have our own calls with District resources.
Now that you are talking about an international call, what is going to happen to the international schools that remained from the previous administration?
Bogotá has a challenge for productivity and it is the level of English. In Bogotá, neither young people nor adults have a good level of English when compared to other cities in Latin America or the world of equivalent size. For this reason, in the Development Plan we are going to continue contributing to bilingualism. In the case of schools, we are going to have a very ambitious goal so that more than 30 percent of young people learn, graduating at a B1 level or higher. This is more than tripling the level of students who are at that level.
And in higher education, we are going to do short cycle training with the British Council, with Fulbright, with different entities so that adults in Bogotá improve their English, but the international schools will remain.
ERNESTO CORTÉS
GENERAL EDITOR OF EL TIEMPO
X: @ernestocortes28