During his visit to Cali, Óscar Gustavo Sánchez Jaramillo, Vice Minister of Preschool, Basic and Secondary Education, made important announcements for Cali in educational matters, for example, that this year he would begin the construction of the Universidad del Oriente, in the Aguablanca district.
In addition, it carries out an analysis of the quality of public education in the city and the National Government’s commitment to closing these gaps.
The official also reveals an agenda of academic events prior to COP16 in Cali, where there will be a large participation of people and visitors.
El País: Vice Minister, preschool, basic and secondary education in Cali is not going through a good time if the Saber Tests are taken into account. On the scale of 0 to 500 points, Cali’s average was 255, that is, we almost scraped by…
Óscar Gustavo Sánchez: It is true that Cali, among the large cities of Colombia, has difficulties in consolidating a process of improving education and the reasons are several, one of them is that the east of Cali and the hillside area had growth very disorganized and problems of violence generating complex situations and one, in particular, is the high presence of contracted education (for coverage, where the Nation and the Municipality pay or subsidize the education of students in private schools), this model has less continuity because it recruits less qualified teachers. So, there are public education teachers and schools that could offer better education, but they do not have enough students.
El País: What is the solution?
Óscar Gustavo Sánchez: It is a process, it is not from one day to the next, but a substitution of contracted education for public education has to begin.
Is that what you did when you were Secretary of Education of Bogotá?
Óscar Gustavo Sánchez: Between 2012 and 2015, in Bogotá, we went from having 130,000 students in contracted education to having zero. With very important quality indices.
During the government of Maurice Armitage, in Cali, there was a very nice project called ‘My Community Is School’, the idea is that the philosophy of that project, which is outlined in our National Development Plan, is carried out to consolidate comprehensive training in schools with high-quality education, but also with art, culture, sports, civics and for that we must expand the teaching staff, the public school staff and link the educational institutions with the territory, with the areas environmental, with the artistic world, which here in Valle del Cauca has enormous wealth. But in summary it is to strengthen public education, but generating comprehensive training.
The other thing Cali needs is to have a stronger initial education program?
Óscar Gustavo Sánchez: Already in Colombia, Bogotá, began to do it by having three-grade preschools in public schools; Medellín has the ‘Buen Comienzo’ program; Barranquilla also has initial education programs and Cali needs to have them too. One feels that in Cali, education needs reinforcement, the current mayor, Alejandro Eder, is clear about this, we have already met with him and we are in the plan to support them from the National Government.
What is the MinEducación Agenda regarding Cali?
Óscar Gustavo Sánchez: We have several tasks: the expansion of initial education, children between 0 and 6 years old must have a professional education, in addition to the work done by community mothers and caregivers, including that children can enter school from the 3 years. Strengthen comprehensive education, teachers who not only teach, but also make educational innovation; strengthen secondary education and the link with the Sena and universities; work on teacher education so that teachers have access to high-level undergraduate degrees.
Another issue to keep in mind is that here in Cali ethno-education is very strong and that deserves a special curricular design and, on the other hand, finishing the educational infrastructure that is pending in the city.
Regarding that last issue, that of educational infrastructure in Cali and Valle, there are several white elephants in the region…
Óscar Gustavo Sánchez: We are finishing and improving several pending infrastructures, we are carrying out 11 works in the region co-financed between the Municipality and the National Government. That had a long line of delays, we feel that we have managed to expedite it… But the president, Gustavo Petro, announced the Universidad del Oriente for Cali and although it is a project of another vice ministry, it is important to highlight it and we are going to move it forward.
There is already a resource for $192,000 million and the Municipality offered a couple of properties, the location must be defined. It is expected to start with a modular structure to have the work up and running within a year. In fact, there are already two schools that have begun to make offers so that students, using the existing infrastructure at the school, can advance in their university credits and then be able to finish them at the Universidad del Oriente.
What will be the role of MinEducación in COP16?
Óscar Gustavo Sánchez: We are doing a series of activities to bring the best environmental education specialists in Latin America to Cali. For example, Brazil will send a large delegation. Then we will do a series of previous events: The Ibero-American Congress of Environmental Education, which will take place before COP16. We are organizing it with MinAmbiente. It is a large event where we expect at least 2000 people to arrive.
Then we are going to hold meetings of teachers and students who have very important experiences, of bird sightings, of cataloging plants, not only in Colombia, but in other countries in the Amazon area.
We are also going to relaunch the Environmental Education Policy of Colombia, where we are going to resume the School Environmental Projects, Praes, and we are going to carry out a kind of jamboree (a large camp) of experiences in the country. You can’t imagine the number of teachers and young people who are interested in these topics.
When will the Ibero-American Congress of Environmental Education be held?
Óscar Gustavo Sánchez: Between July 16 and 18, here in Cali, at least 2,000 people are expected and from there we begin the activities…
Óscar Gustavo Sánchez: We are going to assign schools in Cali and Yumbo to carry out these activities. We are discussing it, but we hope that these activities will be at the Greater Yumbo Educational Institution and at the Santa Librada school in Cali…
But the Santa Librada de Cali is falling, its academic community has been denouncing that for a while…
The idea is that COP16 visitors can visit these fairs, parallel to the summit negotiations. Obviously, we will have translators into Japanese and German to tell the experiences very well.
