Education in Colombia

By Nestor Marin

Putting aside the fact that education must be public, it also must have a high level
of quality. In Colombia, in order to reach such level of quality, the educational
system has to be changed because it is obsolete, it does not motivate the students
and it is not personalized. As we will see, those three aspects are fundamental to
achieve a high level education.
Educational system in our country is deprecated. It has not suffered major changes
since XX century when the three well-known levels that compose it were defined.
Primary school, secondary school and superior education. All three levels follow
the same methodology. Whereas first world nations teach a second language
early, in Colombia, teaching of a second language not only starts late but also is
poor. The main objective in primary school is to teach students a fundamental
knowledge. They learn to read, to write, basic maths, biology and history, and in
secondary school they have contact with more formal knowledge and more
sciences. In summary, the curriculum for the two first levels cover a lot of subjects
to teach more fields than it should so as to give students a shallow knowledge of a
lot of subjects. It is something pretty similar to the schools in The Enlightenment,
three centuries back, but leaving aside the teaching of important things for life like
the connection with our world, with nature, and even more specific and basic things
like how to live on your own.
That kind of education does not motivate students to think and be creative.
Students are forced to make tedious assignments in a lot of subjects they take
without a meaning for their lives. They are not learning the context and real
application of the concepts, for example, they learn geometry but they do not know
why. It is not taught that elements from geometry like the triangle were used by
ancient Egyptians in agriculture which could give students a meaning of why it is

important to study triangles, and that is one of a lot of examples. Another fact is
that classes are focused on the teacher as main actor and students do not have an
active participation. They only receive what the teacher gives and they fill their
minds with information. Rarely are they pushed to think why and how. In fact, more
than thinking, students learn only to develop mechanical skills, which is not very
useful to develop creativity and new ideas. For example, while we have a lot of
math courses, we do not have even just one course where students can propose
inventions or projects by themselves.
Finally, our education is no customized but massive. Teachers usually have to
manage to teach forty or more students per group, and since that happens, all
students are treated in the same way as if all of them were copies of the same
person, although, obviously they are not. They all have different personalities and
have different ways to learn, to express themselves, to think, to study and our
educational system should be aware of that. The amount of people per group must
be reduced in order to allow that teachers can focus on what the students in their
small groups want to do with their lives and so teachers _ can develop better
strategies and methodologies not only to teach but to guide students.
A solid educational system is modern. It includes strategies and methodologies to
motivate students, to make them be creative and it tries to adapt to the proper
needs of each student. Because of that and because the Colombian educational
system has a lack of those aspects is that it must be reformed in order to offer a
high level education to people.