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Located in the northwestern part of South America, Columbia touches both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, bordering Ecuador and Peru on the south and Brazil and Venezuela on the east. In July 2000, the census reported the population to be 39,685,655, with the majority of people living in large cities in the center and the northern part of the country. The census reported that the population was di…
The Conservative Party ended the Liberal Party's domination of the federal government in 1882 with the election of Rafael Nuñez. After sitting out two years as required by the Constitution of 1863, Nuñez regained the presidency and called a convention to draft a new constitution. Adopted in 1886, this constitution, which remained in effect until 1991, offered free elementary e…
As a result of increased school enrollment, nearly 92 percent of the adults in Colombia over age 15 had at least the basic ability to read and to write in the year 2000. The increases in education were significant. In 1935, enrollment at the elementary school level reached about 550,000, while in 1980, that number had risen to nearly 4,200,000. A dramatic increase took place at the secondary level…
In Colombia, the available pre-kindergarten and kindergarten programs vary from day care programs that simply watch over the children to sophisticated programs employing specialized teachers and advanced technology. Almost 92 percent of the pre-kindergarten and kindergarten centers are Catholic, privately owned and operated, and are located in urban centers. In 1970, to increase educational opport…
In Colombia, secondary education is concentrated in urban areas. As a result, a disproportionate number of high school students come from wealthy families. This bias toward the wealthy children remains true even though about 60 percent of the students enroll in public schools. (Hanratty and Meditz). Secondary education grew rapidly in Colombia. In 1970, 20 percent of children in the appropriate ag…
After completing secondary education, students wishing to attend a university must pass the official entrance examination, El Examen de Estado (The State Examination). For many years, students applying for higher education had to possess a Bachiller (secondary school) diploma and pass an exam. In 1980, the Ministry of National Education issued a decree that made this common practice a legal requir…
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 to…
During the early twentieth century, small towns and cities had local newspapers that produced issues of less than 10 pages to a small circle of readers. Not until the 1930s did a major newspaper achieve national circulation. In 1929, Elías Pellet Buitrago made the first radio broadcast in Colombia. However, there were only about 250 receivers in the country. By 1935, radio's populari…
In 1979, The Congress of Colombia passed the Teacher's Law (Estatuo Docente), which specified the rights and benefits of teachers throughout the nation. This statute established a salary scale for teachers with 14 levels and benefits. At the same time, the teachers were expected to enter a registry. The lowest level at which a person could enter this registry required completion of a teache…
Since the inception of Colombia, the government has formulated laws to improve schools. These have included such efforts as standardizing educational programs, raising teacher qualifications, and making buildings more sanitary. Unfortunately, for several reasons, the different governments that held power could not implement the measures they mandated. One important reason was that the tradition of…
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