Before leaving office, the outgoing Minister of Education, Aurora Vergara, assured that she had submitted to the Ministry of the Interior five bills that form part of the new attempt at a Statutory Law on Education. This, after Congress rejected the proposal to reform the system in the last legislature, pending a final debate.
Faced with this new push for the initiative to be discussed and approved by the Legislature, Benjamín Cepeda, director of planning and quality management of the Inpahu University Foundation (Uninpahu) stated that “the State does not have the capacity” to promote public education services on its own.
“In this sense, it is necessary to note that, The State does not have the capacity to promote public service, which is why solidarity economies provide essential support to guarantee training at different levels.focused on the feasibility, viability and relevance of the academic offerings of the institutions, which implies the strengthening of existing ones to encourage permanence and timely graduation, under continuous improvement to guarantee the quality and excellence of the processes,” he said.
Cepeda stressed that, although the proposal seeks to reduce bureaucratic procedures and expand the educational offer, it is essential to address the challenges of the Colombian educational system in a comprehensive and structural manner.
“Beyond pretending that, by mitigating bureaucratic procedures that deliberately allow the opening of institutions or programs in different territories, or intervening in university autonomy, granted under a constitutional mechanism; We must truly understand the difficult situation that our community in general is going through and, in this line, the changes must be structural and fundamental, recognizing the advances in the matter.“, he added.
He also stressed the importance of recognizing education as an agent of social transformation and an engine of economic growth. According to him, any reform must go beyond superficial solutions and focus on profound changes that have a positive impact on the national reality.
“(…) The imminent need is focused on a systematic and comprehensive review of public policies that allow a positive impact on national reality, praising education as a factor in building a promising social fabric and providing decent living conditions for Colombians, This will allow not only to promote access and coverage for priority populations and those requiring special constitutional protection, but also to provide strategies for productive inclusion and reintegration into civilian life,” he added.
He also stressed that comprehensive training should promote critical and innovative thinking, closing gaps in a globalized environment and strengthening business competitiveness. Collaboration between universities, companies and the State is essential for this purpose.
“Understanding that the comprehensive training of people throughout life focuses on the development of critical, proactive and innovative thinking, which allows designing, generating, assuming and transferring knowledge to close the gaps in a globalized environment and strengthen business competitiveness, in constant search for the truth and establishing paradigms that allow the cohesion of the different sectors. Therefore, the importance of recognizing the diversity of institutions and the articulation of the University-Business-State triad prevails, All this, under the understanding that education is not a standard of work and/or professional approach, but the construction of knowledge that allows the development of competencies in a progressive manner and the achievement of the learning results proposed in the academic programs,” he emphasized.
