In the discussion ‘The hour of change: new bets of Colombian universities’, held on the last day of the XI Leaders for Education Summit in , Víctor Saavedra, director of the District Agency for Higher Education, Science and Technology – Atenea assured that the financing of the educational system is the most important challenge to work on. Therefore, with the new strategy patented and applied this year, ‘Youth to the E’, The Mayor’s Office of Bogotá has awarded more than 2 thousand scholarships for the second semester and will award more than 32 thousand additional scholarships.
This study possibility links more than fifteen academic campuses willing to receive those who gain access through the scholarships offered.
“At this moment we have 32 thousand scholarship students in Bogotá in more than 50 universities. For this second semester we have already awarded 2,700 scholarships and we are planning to activate 4 thousand new scholarships next year (…). “We are not only going to finance university education, but also technical and labor programs,” Saavedra explained.
“We seek to consolidate this program, which has a very positive balance because it increased the probability that young people from the city would enter higher education. For the beneficiaries, the probability of entering increased 30 percentage points. A very important role of the public sector to support the system is financing. “We project an investment of 3.6 billion pesos, much more than Ser Pilo pays,” he added.
Faced with the innovation of higher education, José Manuel Restrepo, rector of the EIA University of Antioquia, indicated that the educational institution has concentrated its efforts on providing personalized education for its students and offering support in the challenges of the 21st century.
“The university life project is much more than a class. It is important that we care about the integrity, happiness and responsibility of each of our students. We do this through methodologies that evaluate their competencies throughout their entire career,” said Restrepo.
“Besides, Today’s emphases are knowledge frontier topics: artificial intelligence technologiesthe use of robotics, the internet of things, how to advance in the energy transition, smart territories, technological innovation, digital economies, among many more. “Students must be on that border,” he added.
Transformations in education
Finally, the rector of the Nueva Granada Military University, Javier Alberto Ayala Amaya, pointed out that in addition to the challenges in financing and labor relations, The psychological and socio-emotional factor must also be strengthened as a priority, as well as the student-teacher relationship. to enable spaces for dialogue, expression and make “a redirection to peaceful coexistence”, in order to attack and avoid, from the institutions, the rates of youth suicide in the country.
