Reform Higher Education: Law 30

The proposal of Colombian president, Juan Manuel Santos, to reform the Higher Education Law 30 of 1992 has not been received well. University students, professors and common citizens agree that the majority of the proposed changes — especially those touching on financial matters and university autonomy — don´t help improve neither the quality of education nor the lives of Colombians.
Before thematter is to be settled in the national congress, opponents of the reform proposal have tried to get the government's attention through meetings to analyze the proposal's impacts in university conferences, assemblies and other gatherings to debate the proposal in areas designated by the Education Ministry.
Everyone said that is the time to revise the law, but the position of the government clashwith the universities. This has provoked different disturbance and manifestations as the happened the past April 7 when different universities as Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Universidad Distrital Francisco José de Caldas, Universidad Pedagógica Nacional and others privates as Universidad Javeriana and Universidad de Cundinamarca decided to take to the streets looking for better guaranteesfor higher education.
Law 30 of 1992 has been the responsible for regulating higher education in Colombia. There arises a college education as a right of every citizen, not as a service, as was defined recently by Juan Manuel Santos, Colombian president.
It's been 18 years since that passed Law 30 of 1992 and the sector has changed substantially. By then, we didn´t have a VICE MINISTER of HigherEducation, ICFES wasn´t an institute devoted to the evaluation of education and ICETEX wasn´t a bank, to name a few changes.
Although the reform had been preparing since the last administration, working in partnership with the Ministry of Education and the rectors of universities, which introduced a few weeks ago the president Juan Manuel Santos is wider and controversial proposals.
For thestate has been very easy to say that they have credit facilities for students, they will start to pay after graduation from training, however, is common to take to the streets and saw long lines of people with an undergraduate degree seeking work as taxi drivers, domestic servants, among others. This is not to say that they are jobs with little merit, only that none went to college five years fornot exercising their profession. In these circumstances pay a credit is complex.
The key point of reform is the ability to create higher education institutions for profit. The spokesmen the reform are cautioned to anticipate any claim saying that there will be more coverage, better teachers, and more research.
Another common claim is that the examples illustrating the creators of the proposalare experiences in nations that have an environment similar to ours. It takes careful study of culture, economics, and support, willingness to study, borrowing capacity and investment in the country and there they propose realistic changes in the models.
In addition to the above mentioned other contentious issues of the reform of 144 articles are the possibility that the private company will investin public universities. For the president Juan Manuel Santos, if public education wants to be competitive and good quality cannot deny the possibility of private investment sources. "This proposal doesn´t in any way to privatize public education, nor will mean higher costs for students.” (“Reform Law 30”…2011, April 11)
On the other hand, University autonomy is perhaps the issue that mostworries the sector. For the Government strengthens the project quality assurance, accreditation and evaluation of higher education. But for the rectors, the Ministry of Education would have more power to monitor and sanction, which some see as a huge injury to university autonomy. "It is dangerous for democracy you are given so much power to an executive, unchecked by the courts. The proposal gives...