“The minister goes off on a tangent”: Fecode criticizes agreements between the Government and the opposition

The main teachers union in Colombia promises to “fight in the streets” for the collapse or withdrawal of the current draft statutory Education law, which is just one debate away from being approved. Fecode has raised the tone of its statements in the last few hours and now clearly demands the end of the project, criticizing the Minister of Education of Gustavo Petro’s Government, Aurora Vergara.

“The Minister of Education (Aurora Vergara) goes off on a tangent and does not respond to the real questions about the disastrous “monkeys” that were included in this bill. She must recognize that as she is, she goes against her goal of recognizing education as a fundamental right,” the union responded in a publication in X to the Ministry of Education. Fecode is holding a virtual national meeting this Monday in which, among other things, reports are being presented on the negative aspects of the statutory education law and the current health situation of the teaching profession and the regions.

The board, the union promises, “will make important decisions regarding the action on the strike” that was announced and that will take place this Wednesday, June 12. Fecode has several criticisms of the amendments that the Government and the opposition agreed on on June 5. Among them, it incorporates “a mixed approach to education, opening it to the logic of the market, clearly enabling its privatization and commercialization, under the pretext of improving quality and the fallacy of participation.” The project, says the union, “hits the aims and objectives of education”, reaffirming, it adds, the competency-based approach and “denying the possibility of opening the discussion of a curricular reform.”

For Fecode, “the disastrous content included through the amendments that were agreed upon in the First Commission of the Senate” represents “a risk for public education, promotes commercialization, privatization and makes corruption viable,” he added in a publication. in X.

The Government has not commented directly on these criticisms, and, on the contrary, has defended that the project “seeks to modernize the country in accordance with international regulations, treaties and agreements, as well as with the jurisprudence of the Constitutional Court.” The Ministry of Education points out that the articles will allow “overcoming access barriers at different levels” and “progressive progress in the universalization of access to higher education, bringing the country closer to meeting international standards within the framework of the Sustainable Development Goals. ”. He denies that there are monkeys.

On June 5, after it was approved thanks to agreements with the opposition, Vergara indicated that the Government’s intention was to continue talking with all sectors. “We have multiple voices left to listen to and integrate and we will do so in the plenary session of the Senate, in that text that we will present in the coming weeks,” the minister announced. The text only needs one debate, which is scheduled for June 17. If it passes this debate, the articles would be reconciled with both chambers and would then have to pass the prior and automatic control inherent to statutory laws in the Constitutional Court.