Education of the poorest

The pandemic has deepened the weaknesses that as a nation we have when it comes to facilitating the economic advancement of citizens, health coverage to the most remote and difficult-to-reach areas, and the ability to identify the true needs of the most vulnerable population.

For: Maria Fernanda Cabal

The education of the poorest, being in the hands of the public sector and subject to the demands of FECODE, has suffered greatly from the consequences of the virus in Colombia.

Undoubtedly, our ‘Achilles Heel’ is the training that those who need more and greater opportunities are receiving, but who see their progress slowed from an early age by the ideological agenda of teachers who feel morally superior to induce anti-capitalist thoughts that stop the innovation, creativity and the free market, in exchange for resentment and hatred.

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With or without a pandemic, the Colombian Federation of Education Workers – Fecode -, which has 270,000 affiliated teachers of the almost 312,000 that are in the entire country at the service of the State, has managed to continue putting pressure on the Government; And given the impossibility of carrying out the customary strikes in a physical way, they even declared a “virtual national strike” for 48 hours last year.

The union, as in others in strategic areas of society and the State, exercises a malevolent activism that only seeks to expand its already overwhelmed benefits, at the cost of keeping the poorest captive.

This is a clear strategy of the left to capture followers through the monopoly of public education and under the control of free thought, through a perverse cultural hegemony.

Today they have in check the start of academic activities of public institutions, on behalf of a new and blatant list of requests, whose list is increasingly extensive.

In their false -and outdated- speeches, they speak of the “selfless dedication to their vocation for teaching”, but they “forget” the serious consequences that preventive isolation has left on the children and adolescents of the world.

This was explained by Professor Russell Viner, President of the Royal College of Pediatrics and Child Health in the United Kingdom: “When we close schools, we close their lives,” noting that the pandemic has caused a variety of harm to children across the board, from being isolated and alone to suffering from sleep problems and reduced physical activity.

In this regard, the United Nations also expressed its concern regarding the confinement scenario that has become a breeding ground for violence against children. “The fact that children cannot go to their school friends, teachers or social workers, or access the services and safe spaces offered by schools, aggravates the situation,” said the entity.

In a statement signed by several signatories specializing in the subject, the international organization also highlighted the latent dangers found on the internet for children and adolescents while they receive their classes online, when its use is frequent and without proper control.

“With movement restrictions, loss of income, isolation, overcrowding and high levels of stress and anxiety, the likelihood of children witnessing or experiencing physical, psychological and sexual abuse in the home is also increasing ( …) And online communities, while they have become essential tools to offer support to many children and allow them to continue learning and playing, they also make children more exposed to the threat of cyberbullying and sexual exploitation and danger to adopt risky behaviors online ”the document states.

To all this complex context, add the precarious conditions in which the facilities of public institutions are located, which, after a year of total cessation of activities, still do not have the capacity to provide a minimum of health for their students. The number of sanitary batteries, their maintenance, the drinking water service and the deterioration of the sinks, is the most frequent radiography.

Faced with this issue, there has been greater interest shown by the educational institutions under concession, which have taken their own measures, following the guidelines of the National Government and strengthening their protocols for a reactivation, although slow, much more in line with the urgent needs of your students.

Bogotá is a faithful example of the abysmal difference that exists between public institutions and those granted to private parties. Of the 400 public schools in the city, only eight of them started face-to-face activities; and five of them are part of the education scheme contracted by concession – that is, delivered to the private sector. From the District, administered by the Secretary of Education, only three institutions entered.

The problem is showing the solution: The educational gap is widening and it is clear to us that private education and concession schools have much more to offer our children and young people.

It is the perfect opportunity for the demand subsidy to be implemented in Colombia and to increase the number of schools under concession, which are left in the hands of education experts and show a real interest in the well-being of their students, investing not only in the faculty but in its infrastructure.

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Stop transferring resources directly to district schools and do so through school bonds to parents -only redeemable in educational institutions-; being themselves the ones who choose in which school they want their children to study, ceasing to depend on the arbitrariness of teachers’ unions and a quota system that is depriving children of access to quality education.

It is time to do it, the future of the new generations and of an entire country is at stake.