Colombia

Partners situated in Colombia

None.

However, Paul Bacsich spoke at the Colombia Aprende conference in Bogota in 2005.

Colombia in a nutshell

(sourced from Wikipedia)

Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia (Spanish: República de Colombia), is a country in northwestern South America. Colombia is bordered to the east by Venezuela and Brazil; to the south by Ecuador and Peru; to the north by the Atlantic Ocean, through the Caribbean Sea; to the north-west by Panama; and to the west by the Pacific Ocean.

Colombia also shares maritime borders with Jamaica, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Honduras, Nicaragua and Costa Rica.

Colombia is the 26th largest nation in the world and the fourth largest in South America (after Brazil, Argentina, and Peru), with an area more than twice that of France. It also has the 29th largest population in the world and the second largest in South America, after Brazil. Colombia has the third largest Spanish-speaking population in the world after Mexico and Spain.

The word "Colombia" comes from the name of Christopher Columbus (Spanish: Cristóbal Colón, Italian:Cristoforo Colombo). It was conceived by the revolutionary Francisco de Miranda as a reference to all the New World, especially to those territories and colonies under Spanish and Portuguese rule. The name was then adopted by the Republic of Colombia of 1819 formed out of the territories of the old Viceroyalty of New Granada (modern day Colombia, Panama, Venezuela and Ecuador).

In 1830, when Venezuela and Ecuador separated, the Cundinamarca region that remained became a new country, the Republic of New Granada. In 1858 New Granada officially changed its name to the Granadine Confederation, then in 1863 the United States of Colombia, before finally adopting its present name — the Republic of Colombia — in 1886.

The Government of Colombia takes place in a framework of a presidential representative democratic republic as established in the Colombian Constitution of 1991. The Colombian government is divided into three branches of power; the executive, legislative and judicial with special control institutions and electoral institutions. The President of Colombia is the highest representative of the executive branch of government in Colombia and is also the head of state and head of government with supreme administrative authority, followed by the Vice President and the Council of Ministers of the Republic of Colombia.

At a provincial level the executive is managed by department governors, municipal mayors at municipal level and local administrators for smaller administrative subdivisions such as corregidor for corregimientos. The legislative branch of government in Colombia is represented by the National Congress of Colombia which is formed by an upper house the Senate and the Chamber of Representatives. At a provincial level the legislative branch is represented by department assemblies and a municipal level with municipal councils. Both the legislative and executive branches share most of the government power while the judicial branch of Colombia functions as an independent body from the other two branches which are vested with a shared power. The judicial branch under a adversarial system is represented by the Supreme Court of Justice which is the highest entity in this branch but shared in responsibility with the Council of State, Constitutional Court and the Superior Council of the Judicature which also have jurisdictional and regional courts.

Colombia is divided into 32 departments and one capital district which is treated as a department. There are in total 10 districts assigned to cities in Colombia including Bogotá, Barranquilla, Cartagena, Santa Marta, Tunja, Cúcuta, Popayán, Buenaventura, Tumaco and Turbo. Colombia is also subdivided into some municipalities which form departments, each with a municipal seat capital city assigned. Colombia is also subdivided into corregimientos which form municipalities. Each department has a local government which is headed by a department governor and its own department assembly elected for a period of four years in a regional election. Each municipality also headed by a municipal mayor and a municipal council. And for corregimientos there will be an elected corregidor or local leader.

Some departments have also local administrative regional subdivisions such as the departments of Antioquia and Cundinamarca, where towns have a large concentration of population and municipalities are near each other. In the case of some department where the population is still scarce and there are security problems such as in eastern Colombian departments of Amazonas, Vaupés and Vichada there special administrative definitions for territories, some are considered Department corregimientos, which are a hybrid between a corregimiento and a municipality. The difference besides the population is also subject to a cut in the assigned budget.

Colombia's economy is fueled by abundant natural resources, a highly literate population and relatively high-valued currency. After experiencing decades of steady growth (average GDP growth exceeded 4% in the 1970-1998 period), Colombia experienced a recession in 1999 (the first full year of negative growth since 1929), and the recovery from that recession was long and painful. Colombia's economy suffers from weak domestic and foreign demand, austere government budgets, and serious internal armed conflicts.

With approximately 43.6 million people in 2006, Colombia is the third-most populous country in Latin America, after Brazil and Mexico.

Movement from rural to urban areas was very heavy in the mid-twentieth century, but has since tapered off. The urban population increased from 31% of the total population in 1938, to 57% in 1951 and about 70% by 1990. Currently the figure is about 77%. Thirty cities have a population of 100,000 or more. The nine eastern lowlands departments, constituting about 54% of Colombia's area, have less than 3% of the population and a density of less than one person per square kilometer (two persons per sq mi.). Colombia's total population in 2015 is projected to be more than 52 million.

The country has a diverse population that reflects its colourful history and the peoples that have populated here from ancient times to the present. The historic amalgam of the different main groups forms the basics of Colombia's current demographics: European immigrants, Indigenous Natives, Africans, Asians, Middle Easterners and other recent immigrants. Many of the indigenous peoples were absorbed into the mestizo population, but the remaining 700,000 currently represent over eighty-five distinct cultures.

Colombia education policy

Approximately 80 percent of Colombian children enter school, but they usually join a preschool academy until age 6 and then go to school. The school year can extend from February to November or from August to June in the capital city while in many other cities it extends from August to June. Primary education is free and compulsory for nine years for children between 6 and 12 years of age.

Total public spending as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2001 was 4.4 percent — one of the highest rates in Latin America — as compared with 2.5 percent at the end of the 1980s. Government expenditures on education in 1999 totaled 19.7 percent of total government spending. The ratio of pupils to teachers in 2001 in primary school was 26:1 and in secondary school, 19:2.

People in Colombia are educated in Spanish (see also Colombian Spanish). The second most spoken language is English.

Colombia education system

(partly sourced from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_Colombia)

Education in Colombia comprehends the formal and non-formal education. Formal education is composed of nursery school, elementary school, high school and technical instruction and college education. The basic goal expected for the average citizen is of 11 grades (elementary school and mid highschool). The covering of basic education for the state institutions is about 50%. The private institutions cover the other 50% and most of the technical and university formation, due to the scarcity of public resources destined to education.

Over 94% of the entire population over 15 years of age can read and write, and this number has continued to increase throughout the years. Sixty percent of students complete primary schooling (5 years) and move onto secondary schooling (6 years). Most primary schools are private. The net primary enrollment (percentage of relevant age-group) in 2001 was 86.7 percent. The completion rate (percentage of age-group) for children attending elementary school (primaria) in 2001 totaled 89.5 percent.

In many rural areas, teachers are poorly qualified, and only five years of primary school are offered. Secondary education (educación media) begins at age 11 and lasts up to six years, in some cases 7 (mostly in private schools, where it usually is vocational training).

Secondary-school graduates are awarded the diploma (high-school diploma). Net secondary enrollment in 2001 was 53.5 percent. School life expectancy in 2001 was 11.1 years.

Colombia has 24 public universities. A total of 92.5 percent of the population is literate (male: 92.4 percent; female: 92.6 percent), according to a 2003 estimate. Literacy is at 93 percent in urban areas, but only 67 percent in rural areas.

School

Nursery school

Most of the children under 5 years are provided with daycare and nursery school in "Hogares Comunitarios" (community homes) sponsored by the National Institute for Family Welfare (ICBF acronym in Spanish), where mothers from the community take care of their own children, as the children from the immediate neighborhood. When children of Colombia learn to read and write, they are usually transferred to the elementary school. There are also a large number of private kindergarten facilities, but most of the time the high fees are very restrictive to the average family.

Elementary school

Elementary school last 5 years and is meant to provide the basic skills to achieve non-qualified jobs. Primary education is free and compulsory for nine years for children between 6 and 12 years of age. The net primary enrollment (percentage of relevant age-group) in 2001 was 86.7 percent. The completion rate (percentage of age-group) for children attending elementary school (primaria) in 2001 totaled 89.5 percent. In many rural areas, teachers are poorly qualified, and only five years of primary school are offered.

Due to the insufficiency of the existing institutions to accomplish the full coverage of the children population, the public education system has adopted the "automatic promotion" as standard practice, meaning that the children are promoted to the next grade no matter the achievement of goals, with the purpose to avoid extra years of occupancy in the schools.

High school

Secondary education is divided in basic secondary (grades 6th to 9th) and mid secondary (grades 10th and 11th). Net secondary enrollment in 2001 was 53.5 percent. School life expectancy in 2001 was 11.1 years.

In order to access college or technical education, highschool students must take the statal test pruebas de estado provided by Instituto Colombiano para el Fomento de la Educación Superior - ICFES.

Non profit organizations working to fill the education gap in Colombia

There are hundreds of well-run non profits in Colombia that are helping to close the education gap. To support their efforts, the Colombian diaspora has begun to organize and channel resources to them from the United States. One of the largest examples is the Genesis Foundation. Other organizations like Colombia Progresa raise scholarships in the US to support the education of children in Colombia.

Higher education

Higher education is divided into undergraduate degrees and postgraduate degrees and is regulated by the 30th law of 1992. Most of the university degree courses are five years long.

Technical education usually lasts 3 years.

Post-graduate education includes masters degrees and PhD.

Polytechnics in Colombia

Education for Work and Human Development (technical colleges)

Education for Work and Human Development is regulated by law 1064 of 2006 and the 2888 decrete of 2007. This kind of Education provide a degree of Technical Education, provides skills and talents to improve the level of subsistence. Education for work involves technical skills necessary to the performance of work through the formation of "labor competences", which is a Colombian strategy to standardize and certify human resource, expanding and diversifying the formation and training of human resources. It includes the education provided by the enterprises to their employees. The Colombian government promotes this kind of education as an alternative for university education, which is not accessible for the majority. Some institutions that provide this services are: SENA (national service of learning); CESDE; ANDAP; INCAP among others.

Virtual initiatives in HE in Colombia

See Colombia Aprende.

References

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