Task 4 – Final Activity

Student: Miryam Fabiola González Code: 1030627438

Tutor: Jhonathan Alexander Huertas

Group: 551035_1

Colombian Education (551035A_766)

National Open and Distance University UNAD

School of Education Sciences

Bachelor of Foreign Languages with an Emphasis in English

Colombian Education (551035A_766)

March 22, 2021

 Reflective Essay

Colombia, like many Latin American countries, presents a very similar situation at an

educational level, each of the educational systems in Latin America are going through qualitative

changes which are marked by complex and different transformations, each of the countries

including Colombia is recognizing the tendency to rethink in which direction the administration

and evaluation of the entire educational apparatus are pointing.

I observe that the situation of our country in terms of the educational panorama has had great

improvements and advances, as well as mistakes have been found, but for this reason the national

government has made great efforts to make changes that contribute to improving the quality of

education. According to this thought ... it is associated with a type of educational reform that

implies a social and cultural change and that must be assumed as a political problem, within the

framework of the configuration of the State [Pereyra and others, 1996 p. 6].

About the international panorama as it points to globalization and the requirement that the XXI

century brings with it “the governments of Latin America began to emphasize the importance of

education, technology, English, information flows and educational credentials in order to

compete in the global economy. while structural issues such as poverty, lower wages, informal

and precarious employment, as well as social exclusion were ignored in international policy-

making conversations. To adhere to this globalization "In order to make nations and individuals

more competitive at the national and global market level, educational systems are profoundly
restructured (Stromquist, 2002)". I can infer from this statement that countries have made

different efforts to improve their education, although they have neglected other important aspects

that affect their inhabitants immensely.

I consider it important to mention the role played by each of the educational agents, who must

take on great challenges, one of which and perhaps very significant has been the National

Bilingualism Plan, which has been a very important bet for the benefit of the population.

Colombian school, At the end of 2005, the Ministry of Education presented the National

Bilingual Program 2004-2019, an unprecedented language policy in Colombia. Unlike previous

projects, this program would constitute a long-term, far-reaching, and comprehensive policy

complemented by a presidential plan called "Educational Revolution" (Ministerio de Educación

Nacional, 2008). So far it has been one of the great challenges for the national government in

terms of language-related education policy, since it contemplates a compliance date of more than

10 years and broadly has several challenges as mentioned ( Cely, 2007). In addition, they

presented five specific areas of implementation, which would include the following actions: 1)

development of standards for Teaching and learning English; 2) Continuously evaluate

communicative competence in students, as well as teachers in service and in training within

Educational and Linguistic Policy in Colombia: exploring processes of inclusion, exclusion and

stratification ... PROFILE 11, 2009. ISSN 1657-0790. Bogota Colombia. Pages 123-141129 and

outside the formal school system; 3) provide professional development programs for teachers to

develop their pedagogical knowledge as well as communicative competence in English; 4)

support the use of new information and communication technologies for teaching English; and 5)

consolidate bilingual and trilingual models in the different ethnic communities throughout the

country.
 On a personal level, I consider that it has been a great bet since Colombia is "a multiethnic and

multilingual country, where indigenous languages are often ignored and silenced in public space,

and less than 2% of the population speaks English." It is worth wondering if the national

bilingualism plan has had the proper approach since Colombia is a large country and has endless

cultural and ethnic aspects, it is a place where different racial mixtures converge.

From another point of view that I consider it important to analyze in terms of the policy of

bilingualism is that, among these voices, some questioned the very adoption of the term

"bilingualism" in a country like Colombia (Ayala and Álvarez, 2005; Cárdenas; 2006; Sánchez &

Obando, 2008), or criticized its limited notion of Spanish-English bilingualism (de Zárate, 2007).

Where the national government has promoted the exclusive relationship between Spanish-English

as the bilingual aspect, perhaps leaving aside other languages of great importance, as well as the

indigenous languages that are widely spoken by many of the native inhabitants and that could

make a difference. valuable contribution to cultural enrichment.

From my personal appreciation, I consider that the public sector is being affected by some of

the decisions presided over by state entities “the public sector is also insufficient and is not

prepared for the new global challenges, which opens the doors to private investors presented as

guarantors of high quality and innovation. This is how the education sector becomes an

opportunity for business, educational centers become for-profit businesses, and students are

reduced to customers, in a change that Molnar (2005) described as selling to schools, selling

schools and selling in colleges. This is undoubtedly a great threat that the Colombian public

educational system has, which is being channeled towards arbitrary privatization and a few are

privileged.
 Regarding the resources that are allocated for education, Colombia stands out for an inefficient

category compared to other nations in the neighborhood "increased job instability of teachers,

decreased quality in public schools, and consolidated a private school system aimed at educating

children from socioeconomic strata 3, 4, 5 and 6 (Ocampo, 2002; Bernal, 2006) ”. The value of

teaching work has been lost, salaries are not considered the most adequate, the quality of

education within public institutions has greatly diminished, and much of this is largely due to the

ineffective distribution of public resources. Many of the policies of recent years have been

accompanied by previous centralized efforts to reduce public spending on education, standardize

the system, reduce teacher autonomy, dismantle the public sector, and destabilize teachers' work.

This is often not positive since the decrease in expenses in the education sector can immensely

affect public schools and affect them to a great extent.

From my personal perspective, I can say that educational policies are considered ineffective in

terms of the reality that is projected for the educational system, the results obtained are not the

best, nor are they the ones that they want to have, since in various qualifications scores have been

obtained that they leave a very regular panorama for Colombian education. From my own

experience, I can argue that the educational system has not changed much for the better, on the

contrary, it continues to remain unfocused towards the main tasks that it must attend to, it has

been in charge of other less pressing aspects or distributing public resources in other sectors and

perhaps the most important area of education has been affected by this type of government

policy.

Finally, it can be concluded that Colombia has done an enormous job in betting on challenges

such as the National Bilingual Plan, which has important tools that contribute to the educational
system moving towards globalization and meeting the requirements of the 21st century, this

national program It has had successes as well as mistakes among them, we can mention betting

that educational institutions have the same educational level in terms of language teaching, on the

other hand, and not so positive, bilingualism has focused on a relationship between Spanish-

English. Which in turn has not been so positive because the value of indigenous languages has

been underestimated. Another relevant aspect has been the unequal distribution of state resources

towards the education sector, which is worth reflecting on, evaluating and looking for possible

solutions.
 References

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Outlook. Íkala, Revista de Lenguaje y Cultura, 14(22), 19-42. Retrieved May 21,
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Usma W., J. (2009). Education and Language Policy in Colombia: Exploring Processes of
Inclusion, Exclusion, and Stratification in Times of Global Reform. Profile Issues in
Teachers` Professional Development, (11), 123-
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