Colombia

Until 1989, the major administrative problem was providing continual improvement in the face of traditional regionalism and the lack of resources in Colombia. The Ministry of Education, representing the national government, exerted control over the governors and departmental secretaries of education through a corps of inspectors who accredited individual schools. One way this control took place was for students to send their diplomas to the central ministry upon graduation. The ministry checked each diploma against university records of the student's progress, validated the diploma, and entered it in a registry. Such a process protected against fraud and allowed graduates to prove they were qualified for further education or to practice an appropriate profession (Londoño).

In 1957, in an effort to bring continuity to the process of educational development, organizations such as the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organizations (UNESCO) persuaded the national government to add a planning office to the Ministry of Education. The planning office recommended, and the Congress adopted, the first five-year educational plan, which became a model for other Latin American countries. In the following years, the national government of Colombia adopted a series of four- and five-year educational plans. Frequently, the presidential platforms of the political parties included a four-year plan.

Although the Ministry of Education sought to offer nationwide planning to control the expansion that took place from 1945 to 1970, these plans were rarely implemented. Instead the educational system expanded rapidly, and local administrators hired people who belonged to the correct political party to become teachers, even though these new teachers lacked proper training. Administrators erected buildings that were not needed and spent money on schools that did not exist. Such abuses happened because the members of each community could obtain education for their children by pressuring local politicians. Unfortunately, the politicians could arrange the construction of a building, but they lacked the authority to find real teachers to staff the building. Worse, communities without political influence didn't get the buildings or even the teachers (Hanson).

Until 1968, the only way the Ministry of Education could influence department governors to conform to central policies was through the use of inspectors. To increase the authority of the central ministry, the national government adopted the Regional Funds Program (FER). This sent money from the national government to the departments to pay teacher salaries, providing the state education secretary followed established criteria, such as hiring qualified teachers, replacing unqualified teachers within two years, and allowing the ministry to supervise state budgetary expenditures.

The benefit of this model was that it allowed the national government to respect the division of authority among the regions while encouraging uniform national improvement. Delegates from the national Ministry of Education lived in the capital city of each department and devoted their attention to the schools in that area. This program increased the central government's control by making the Minister of Education responsible for paying teachers' salaries. Payments were made only if each department's Secretaries of Education met certain conditions, such as annually increasing state appropriations for education, hiring qualified teachers, and replacing unqualified teachers within two years. Although the program began with some difficulty, by 1975, bureaucracies developed within bureaucracies to try to ensure that the department secretaries followed the minister's expectations. In addition, governors were prohibited from hiring more teachers than the state budgets could pay (Hanson).

In 1975, the national government augmented the FER with a nationalization law. This law was intended to create a financial system that would standardize teachers' salaries and benefits, terminate the practice of hiring of teachers without authorization from the federal ministry, and eliminate the uncoordinated construction of school buildings. Unfortunately, education costs increased so rapidly that the central government could not maintain the system it sought to establish (Hanson).

Local officials resented the intrusion of delegates from the national ministry, and political leaders continued to appoint teachers whose only qualification was that they had been faithful campaign workers. Further, although the Regional Funds Program gave the ministry authority to direct changes in the departments, the ministry's recommendations sometimes contradicted local needs (Hanratty and Meditz).

In 1989, two years before the adoption of the new constitution, the Congress shifted school administration functions from the Ministry of Education and each department's secretaries of education to the 1,024 municipal mayors in Colombia. With this change in responsibilities, the Ministry of Education released more than 1,300 school inspectors. Officials in the different regional departments took over the responsibilities formerly handled by inspectors (Hanson).

This transition was uneven. In 1992, a report by the Ministry of Education noted that there was no way to coordinate the efforts of the central ministry members, department officials, and municipal mayors. In part, this happened because the average tenure of the ministers of education and of the department secretaries was often less than 18 months. No one could create the necessary bureaucratic structures because the leadership changed too rapidly (Hanson).

Worse, the decentralization reinforced unequal educational development. According to the policy, the mayor of a municipality oversaw the schools in his or her area. However, the mayor also had to supervise work in other areas of life, such as transportation, water, agriculture, and public health. The mayor and the city council members were elected officials who attained office because they won votes—not because they demonstrated the ability to manage daily affairs.

Colombia does not have a tradition of employing professional city managers. Most municipalities have their own secretary of education. Some cities employ nucleo directors—employees who administer 8 to 20 schools that form a school district. Often, these secretaries and directors lack administrative training and leave their jobs quickly. While large cities have an advantage, the vast majority of municipalities have only a few thousand occupants. Further, a mayor can hold office for no more than three years, which means new people must be trained for these positions frequently (Hanson).

The rationale behind the decentralization was that it would force the citizens to learn how to participate in civic life intelligently. Political education might grow slowly, but it seemed the best way to encourage people to become involved in their own government. Such decentralization and increased citizen involvement offered a way to reduce the political violence that racked the country. Thus, in the early 1990s, Colombians chose to reverse the program of central planning and enforcement that the external agencies and the Ministry of Education had encouraged since the late 1960s. To stem a growing rate of assassinations and kidnappings, they chose to emphasize participatory democracy instead of efficiency in educational planning (Hanson).

Through the 1970s and 1980s, the total public expenditure for schools remained approximately 3 percent of the gross national product (GNP). Private expenditures for schools during the same period represented approximately 2 percent of the GNP. Thus, total education expenditures in Colombia through the 1970s and 1980s somewhat exceeded 5 percent. By comparison, other Latin American countries made an average public expenditure of 4.3 percent of their GNPs. On the other hand, Colombia's private expenditures for education exceeded those of other similar countries (Hanson).

Within the Ministry of Education, various agencies direct funds to education. For higher education, the Colombian Institute for the Development of Higher Education (Instituto Colombiano para el Fomento de la Educación Superior) is responsible for the coordination and distribution of central government funds to public and private universities. The Colombian Institute for School Construction (Instituto Colombiano de Construcción Escolar) is responsible for carrying out Ministry of Education plans for school construction and for providing school equipment and teaching materials to primary and secondary schools. Further, the departments—through the secretaries of education—play a key role in financing primary and secondary education. They are responsible for building and maintaining schools and paying teachers and departmental university faculties. The municipalities provide the land for school buildings and they maintain the school buildings. Throughout the 1960s, however, many small, poor municipalities could not meet their educational obligations. As a result, the three biggest municipalities—Bogotá, Medellín, and Cali—consumed about 70 percent of the total amount of expenditures (Jallade).

In the 1960s, the industrialized cities had a much wider tax base from which to support schools than did rural areas. Consequently, the Ministry of Education allocated more funds for public education in less advantaged areas such as Boyacá and Cauca than in wealthy areas such as Antioquia and Valle. In 1971, the Congress passed the Situado Fiscal (financial security legislation) to require that the ministry follow a formula in deciding how to allocate these funds. According to this statute, the ministry was to divide 30 percent of its funds equally among the departments. It would divide the remaining 70 percent according to the size of the population in each region. In considering population size, the ministry used 1963 census figures that were out of date. The resulting bias helped rural areas, however, because those regions had been losing population (Hanson).

In 1975, the Congress passed the nationalization law that stipulated the central government would assume financial responsibility for all educational expenditures. In doing this, the Ministry of Education would set expense limits for each department. The departments and the municipalities would pay for any expenses beyond those limits. Although department governors would appoint teachers, the ministry determined how many appointments the governor could make. In addition, the ministry had to approve any new school construction (Hanson).

According to the nationalization law, the central government would gradually assume these responsibilities. Thus, from 1970 to 1978, the central government increased its share of the total educational expenditures from 65.5 percent to 83.7 percent. Departments reduced their expenditures from 34.5 percent of the total to 16.3 percent. Unfortunately, in 1980, the ministry realized it would never be able to pay for all school expenses and required the departments to continue making contributions to education (Hanson).

In 1989, when the Congress required that municipalities control education rather than the Ministry of Education, it adopted a strategy to finance those schools. Before decentralization, the national government provided about 84 percent of the needed funds. Departments offered approximately 13 percent, and municipalities contributed 2 percent. The national government froze its level of contributions and required that any needed expansions would have to come from the other contributors (Hanson).

Many mayors feared they could not adequately finance or administer the schools in their municipalities. Even in wealthy cities, the schools were understaffed, the buildings were in disrepair, and many classrooms were overcrowded. Consequently, by 1992, only 70 percent of the municipalities had accepted responsibility for the local schools. Twenty percent of the schools passed into the control of the departments, and 10 percent remained with the Ministry of Education (Hanson).

In 1993, to increase public financial expenditures, all branches of the government dedicated a sum equal to about 5 percent of the gross internal product (Producto Interno Bruto-PIB) to education (Trujillo). The 10-year plan of 1996 called on those same parts of government to raise contributions to match 8.5 percent of the PIB.