In an open letter, former ministers of education, university presidents, former rectors, student representatives and higher education experts asked the government and Congress to maintain the legislative agreement of the Senate First Commission on education reform.
With this agreement, the reform managed to pass the third debate, but generated a resounding rejection by Fecode, the largest teachers union in the country. The Historical Pact bench backed down from that agreement and presented a presentation for the fourth debate in the Senate plenary session that deviates from the consensus reached in the First Commission. For this reason, the more than 200 signatories of this letter ask the Minister of Education and the congressmen not to continue with that presentation.
The arguments of the signatories. The signatories consider that the government’s new presentation presents several risks such as: “Ignorance of university autonomy”; “the lack of recognition of the mixed system, made up of official and unofficial educational institutions”; and “the invisibilization of tertiary education.”
They also warn that the fiscal viability of this project has not been evaluated. For example, according to the educational economics laboratory of the Javeriana University, the cost of expanding state education coverage by 2025 could cost more than 41 billion pesos.
That is why they consider that the agreement reached in the First Committee of the Senate is positive, since it includes and recognizes the aspects that the signatories point out with concern.
Why does it matter? The draft reform of the statutory education law will have its decisive moment this week, since due to legislative times it must be approved no later than June 20, when this legislature ends. Furthermore, the agreement of the First Commission of the Senate has generated a strike by teachers, who have announced mobilizations tomorrow in Bogotá.
You can see the full letter, signed by more than 200 people in the higher education sector, here.
DDF Communiqué- Connect and O… by La Silla Vacía
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