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Colombia Administration and Finance
In the 1980s, the national government continued to bear
the
primary responsibility for public and private education.
The
authority was extended downward from the president to the
minister
of education and by delegation to the secretaries of
education in
the departments, the national territories, and the large
municipalities that maintained their own school systems.
It
extended also to several decentralized institutions
concerned with
education matters.
There were various kinds of schools. At all levels of
schooling, the central government operated a small system
of
national schools ranging from preschool units in major
urban
centers to the massive UNC in Bogotá. Only in Caquetá
Department,
however, were national schools in a majority. Most of the
schools
were maintained by the departments and the national
territories,
and many were maintained by municipalities with
populations of more
than 100,000. Because schools in the national system were
large and
well known and their teaching staffs were in a favored
position,
analysts often overemphasized their numerical importance.
The private sector of education was made up of schools
operated
by the Roman Catholic Church, schools operated by other
religious
denominations, private schools, and cooperative schools
operated by
communities. Catholic schools predominated.
The Constitution guarantees freedom for private
ownership and
operation of schools in the private sector. However, they
had to be
licensed, meet public-school standards, and generally use
the
public curriculum, and they were subject to supervision by
the
public inspection system. Private institutions
administered by
foreign organizations could use the language of the home
country
for instruction, but they had to employ Colombian teachers
to
conduct classes in the Spanish language on the country's
history
and geography. Catholic schools used texts prepared by
Catholic
publishers adapted under government order to conform to
the
prescribed official program of study. The Colombian
government
relied heavily on the private school system, and it
financially
supported institutions that provided scholarships to
children from
poorer families.
In the 1980s, the administration of the education
system
involved an interplay between forces of central control
and forces
of regional decentralization in which political
considerations had
an important part. This interplay had existed for many
years, and
the complexity of the issues involved was perhaps best
exemplified
by the issuance in 1968 of a decree establishing the
system of
Regional Educational Funds (Fondos Educativos
Regionales--FER) as
a many-faceted attack on the country's educational
problems.
Theoretically, the public education system had been a unit
in which
the Ministry of Education set down patterns and rules and
coordinated and supervised the day-to-day administration
provided
at the regional levels. In practice, a kind of anarchy had
developed, in which the departmental and municipal systems
had
operated with a degree of de facto autonomy that prevented
the
central authority from effectively using the material and
human
resources theoretically at its command.
The FER program sought to remedy this situation by
establishing
a relationship between the Ministry of Education and the
regional
school systems in which the amount of money assigned to
each
regional system and the manner in which it was to be spent
were
determined by contract. To administer the FER program and
to
provide a direct line of communication between the
national and
departmental levels, delegates were named by the minister
of
education to oversee the FER programs and to cooperate
with the
regional secretaries of education in administering the
local
education systems. Because the delegates were to reside in
the
departmental capitals and devote their attention
exclusively to the
departmental and municipal school systems in a particular
area, the
Ministry of Education maintained that the change was one
of
decentralization. In fact, it was the exact opposite.
Before the end of 1969, contracts had been signed by
each of
the departmental governors. The most significant portion
of each
contract was a section requiring that the department
establish a
special bank account to receive the monthly national
contributions.
If the terms of the contract were violated or if during
any month
the corresponding regional contributions to the education
fund were
not deposited, the contract would be suspended, and any
unexpended
funds would be returnable to the national government.
Although this
was the only sanction set forth in the contract, it was a
highly
potent one.
The FER system achieved mixed results. The varying
degrees of
noncompliance resulted from and illustrated the problems
that had
plagued the country's education system in the past and
continued to
disturb it into the 1980s. The root causes were intense
regionalism
and the politicization of the local systems.
The presence of the delegate as the representative of
the
control authority was frequently resented. What the
central
authority wanted did not always meet regional needs. The
regional
delegate could work only through the regional secretary of
education, who was not an educator and who was not
concerned
primarily with education. In addition, the regional
delegate was
responsible not to the minister of education but to the
governor of
the department, who was in turn responsible to one of the
two major
political parties.
Although the education sector grew continually after
the 1930s,
the most rapid changes occurred after the 1960s. Colombia
began to
move toward a long-standing educational goal, equal access
to
primary education for all sectors of society. In 1987
about 90
percent of the children between seven (the age established
for
obligatory primary school attendance) and eleven years of
age
attended primary school in urban areas. In many rural
areas,
however, the number was often below 70 percent, and in
some areas
it even dipped below 50 percent in 1988.
The educational levels of the population improved in
tandem
with the country's economic growth. Around 30 percent of
the
twelve-year-old population went to secondary school in
1985, in
contrast to only roughly 8 percent in 1951. Nevertheless,
percentages were much lower in the rural areas because
there were
few secondary schools. Moreover, 80 percent of all
university
students attended classes in just five cities.
In quantitative terms, the performance of Colombia's
education
sector has been impressive. Although increases in the
number of
young people entering the school system have remained
constant--
roughly 3 percent annually throughout the 1970s and
1980s--the
system not only has kept pace with population growth but
also has
increased its rate of absorption of students. In absolute
figures,
one of the most difficult tasks for the public primary
schools was
the absorption of 2 million new students in less than
twenty years.
This growth was particularly remarkable, given that the
system had
less than 1.5 million students in 1960. But this
accelerated growth
was achieved at the cost of a decline in the quality of
public
education because it focused largely on the increased
availability
of classrooms and teachers without taking into account the
need for
supplying other critical resources.
Data as of December 1988
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