Colombia
Several statements in the text below are based on interviews with two Colombian students, one from a private school in Pereira and the other a student who graduated from a public school in Bogotá. In the first place, the student Juan Antonio, a 16-year-old student in the tenth grade at the Liceo Taller San Miguel de Pereira school, and in second place, Estefanía Cardenas, an 18-year-old graduated from the Heleia Mejía school in Bogotá. It is worth clarifying that the criticisms and opinions expressed in the text have a general approach and the existence of institutions that make use of different and innovative methodologies and dynamics to teach is recognized.
Interview
Each country defines its own educational system and Colombia is no exception, in this case the Ministry of Education is in charge of building the educational system based on the learning rhythms of the students and the needs of society, thus, it is carrying out changes in the design and planning of the academic itinerary. To begin with, the structure of the educational system in Colombia comprises 4 stages; initial / preschool education, basic education, secondary education, and higher education.
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In the first place, there is the initial / preschool education, it corresponds to the stage of early childhood, from 0 to 6 years of age, in this stage the incentive for the adequate structuring of cognitive processes, such as thinking, is sought , verbal communication, and the different types of expression, as well as the development of the creative imagination, as favoring the appearance of habits aimed at socialization, taking into account group activity, solidarity values and the principles of collective collaboration from a perspective of caring for the environment and the environment.
In fact, most kindergartens or preschools make use of a grading system, be it numerical values, an alphabetized system or by a description of the student's abilities (excellent, average, below ) Some gardens take so literally evaluating abilities with grades that they deprive the child of the opportunity to enjoy their learning process. That is, when children are young, they do not have those competitive incentives that an adult would normally have.
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It has been shown that developing children show greater affinity towards what they enjoy and it is the school that denies them the right to enjoy their freedom development and personal growth, due to this type of repression some children fail the school year as a result of having lost interest, thus they lose their curiosity and their desire to learn.
In second place is basic education, which involves primary and secondary school, from first grade to ninth grade. These stages include between 6 to 14 or 15 years of the students.
In this period, it seeks to enhance the abilities of students to know the world around them and become integrated citizens within their community, or at least this is what the Ministry of Education affirms in its development plan, but in reality what is perceived about basic school is that it is based on outdated methods, where the teacher stands in front of the board and transmits information while the students receive it, and with this the role of the student is not promoted so that it is more active and can transmit what she/he have learned with that information.
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In addition, based on the questionnaire, for these individuals education in Colombia makes young people mediocre, by accustoming children and adolescents to rely on the grades they receive, from their results the true sense of learning, understanding and analysis, since the student gets used to repeating information and refuses the opportunity to fully understand the topics because he knows that the value of his grade lies in the ability to propagate and transmit the same information that was given, the students know that their ingenuity to digest and express that knowledge autonomously is not even recognized.
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Well, the ministry of education creates an academic itinerary, that is the same for all institutions, based on very general skills that undoubtedly does not encourage young people and does not seek to achieve their potential, according to Andreas Schleicher, a researcher in the area of education "In Colombia, teaching is focused on the reproduction of knowledge and not on its creative application, which has negative consequences in a world where you no longer pay for what you know but for what you can do with that knowledge."
In third place is secondary education, made up of the final two grades of secondary school: 10 and 11, which culminate with a bachelor's degree. On the other hand, along with the culmination of this stage of their lives, students take the Know 11 test (the state exam), which is the test that assesses the knowledge acquired in the intermediate and basic stages and aims to verify the degree of development of competencies in students who are close to completing the eleventh grade, in addition to allowing access to higher education for students who are in their last year of high school.
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It is easy to question what the true purpose of these tests is, perhaps it is to evaluate the student's abilities when putting into practice the knowledge acquired over the years or, on the contrary, they want to qualify the person's ingenuity to copy and paste the information provided by teachers?
Furthermore, from an early age, children do not fully develop their thinking through outmoded methods used by school, they receive information about the law of gravity, cells, chemical symbols, but institutes do not make young people make an effort to think. , for providing solutions to problems and even more importantly, they are not prepared to use that information. Besides, the different learning rhythms, motivations and forms of development are not respected.
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In effect, the school creates individuals who neglect the needs of the spirit and focus on purely physical and material needs, all of this in my opinion, with the aim of creating information reproducing machines and not understanding ones, so that no one can excel because they are taught the same, they do not have the need to exercise individual thought.
Finally, in forth place there is higher education that includes the entry to university and allows students to advance in different specialties and acquire new job skills to be able to function in the work field.
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Analysis of results
Clarifications on public and private education in Colombia
Bibliographic references
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