Coverage
1.1 BASIC EDUCATION
Colombia has approximately 3 million children in school age outside the education establishments. The goal is that seven years from now there is full coverage up to grade 9. To do this, quick action must be taken.
In Colombia, there are 16,327,531 children and youngsters under 18. In year 2000, 10,260,014 children and youngsters were registered in education institutions, 899,707 of them in preschool, 5,088,295 in elementary school and 4,272,012 in high school.
In year 2000, 453,962 high school graduates took the ICFES State Examination, out of which only 148,274 registered at universities. The same year, 417,913 high-school students graduated.
I propose the following:
1. Create 1,500,000 places for basic education within the next four years.
Strengthen public education; involve the whole education offer and typical systems such as the tutorial system that I implemented in the province of Antioquia.
2. Replace the obligatory military service for the obligatory teaching service to offer an efficient way out of the enormous education backwardness faced by the country. The idea is not to replace teachers but, rather, have more Colombians committed as educators.
3. Provide 500,000 children in school age with a snack and lunch every day at school through NGOs, the Church and associated labor cooperatives. This will be done in addition to the current school restaurants and community homes which should also be improved.
How we will do it?
1. We will strengthen the public education and community education offer. To expand coverage we will hire -through certified provinces and municipalities- places from religious institutions, cooperatives, associations and private schools, and payment will be done for each served student thus granting teachers a salary, social security and, laborwise, stability without depending on the government, according to what established in the General System of Participation (Art. 27. L 715/01).
2. We will advance on the relocation and nationalization of the official teaching with fairness, without forcing inhuman transfers or abandoning students.
3. We will support teachers' schools -by means of the hiring system for school places- to overcome the obsolete confrontation between government and -teachers. It is required that these actions make the change from vindicating unionism to participatory unionism.
4. We will establish benefits for private schools that open their doors to students belonging to poor sectors of the population.
5. We will take pilot examples in education such as the Bolsa Escola de Brasil, the Aula Tecnológica (technology classroom) and the experience of Gobernación de Antioquia (1997), to expand the coverage that the General System of Participation delegated in municipalities.
6. We will carry on using the semi on-campus education system that started in the province of Cauca and spread in the regions of Antioquia and Santander -also hired by places- with the support of monitors as an alternative to the countryside and for the young adults in the cities. A monitor would replace several teachers. The use of computers makes this system much easier.
7. We will try to run schools directed by family parents and other community organisms that will be entitled to appoint and remove teachers and individuals in the managing staff. We will evaluate results in terms of quality, students repeating courses and students leaving school. We want excellent schools.
8. We will change the obligatory military service for the teaching obligatory service. We will apply it when we reach the number of 100,000 professional soldiers. The school graduate or university student will be a teacher in elementary or high school for a year, which doesn't mean that he or she will replace a teacher but, rather, will serve a higher number of pupils. The teaching of ethics, ecology, conflict negotiation, and transparency will be of great help for this new teaching group.
9. We will expand the number of places for students-teachers in the schools throughout the country to complete the obligatory teaching service.
10. We will increase the programs to teach especially capable children or those kids with special skills.
11. We will rationalize the building of school facilities through the hiring system. Certified provinces or municipalities with their own resources must provide loans to contractors or concessionaries to build facilities, since there are cases in which each classroom built by the Church has obtained savings for up to 25%, compared to those classrooms built by official contractors.
12. We will provide a coupon for each registered poor child for every school day that will be delivered to the education institution or NGO. Education Departments will distribute those coupons among such institutions. In this manner, we will accomplish the goal of adding 500,000 children to school restaurants and thus will grant them lunch and snack.