THE HOMELAND | MANIZALES
Aurora Vergara, Minister of Education, Visit Manizales this Thursday.
His agenda began at the University Institute of Caldas and continues in the Cuchilla del Salado pathwhere he will visit the Miguel Antonio Caro rural school to present the program there Centers of Interest in Science, Technology and Innovation.
Before starting her tour, the minister spoke with LA PATRIA
What is the purpose of this visit to the city?
The national government is moving forward with the University in your territory strategy and the department of Caldas has a series of results that are special for the government. We are moving forward in various regions, municipalities and institutions of this department in this strategy, and I would like to highlight what is happening at this Caldas University Institute for several reasons: the national government moved forward with the statutory bill to regulate the fundamental right to education at various levels and for various populations in this institution occurs what we would like to see in different parts of the country.
Here we see students from various social strata, families with different requirements, needs, with different ways of learning who find an opportunity to train in conditions of quality and equity. We also see in this institution the articulation with higher education. The articulation between the Caldas University Institute and the University of Caldas is the way we want to see the immediate transition of higher education in the same way. We are going to advance in this journey with the launch of our Centers of Interest strategy, which allows us to put into operation a vision of the National Development Plan for comprehensive training.
What does that mean, that schools can decide specialties for training in art, sports, programming or training at this university institution?
An innovation laboratory and we know that wonderful projects are happening here in connection.
We also have several institutions with this action. Today we will highlight this one, which is establishing its infrastructure and the involvement of its teachers. We have strengthened their School Feeding Program.
This is a department that shows important results from the management of the Government of Change. When we talk about the application of coverage, there is great expectation not only in the capital, but in the municipalities. We have Anserma with the possibility of a technological center at the University of Caldas and we also know that you have supported what is being done in La Dorada. We have a lot of hope because we have the resources assigned and that is one of the most important missions of the Government, to guarantee that it goes from promise to concrete action.
Now what we need is for them to speed up the local dialogue a little more so that the product where the work is going to be done is confirmed and the project can advance in its formation. This is an example of what this territory can achieve in conjunction with the national government, which is more opportunities for young people in schools and more opportunities to access higher education.
There are two years left to finish and the goal is 500 thousand, what are they going for and will it be achieved?
We design the higher education system as a measure of access to education with rectors. To understand this answer, it has several associations: one of them is the state university system in which all public universities participate, there is the network of technological and university technical institutions and there is the school that brings together public and private institutions in different spaces. of work each of these institutions.
It was proposed how half of the 500,000 would be contributed and so we calculated how many students we had to receive each new year. In 2023, we set a goal among all these contributors that we would achieve a goal of 50,000 students while the strategy took off. Today we can say that the goal was met and exceeded because 64,000 students were registered in the system.
Now, for 2024, we hope that more than 100,000 students will arrive and for that we need people like you who have a privileged role in society of disseminating information to be able to tell young people that they can study through this free tuition policy. We hope that all these institutions continue to contribute to this goal. Sena also contributes with technical and technological training and everything is ready for more students to enter the classrooms.
And in this way we will hopefully be able to surpass the goal of 500,000. It is important that this goal is surpassed, not only achieved, because in Colombia we have three million young people who are neither studying nor working, so they should be in the middle school or they should be in universities.
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