STRATEGIES AND PATHS FOR SUCCESSFUL TEACHER EDUCATION: THE CASE OF COLOMBIA

1. STRATEGIES AND PATHS FOR SUCCESSFUL TEACHER EDUCATION: THE CASE OF COLOMBIA OSCAR ARMANDO IBARRA RUSSIRector Universidad Pedagógica NacionalColombia

2. CONTENT • The educational and constitutional context of Colombia • History of Teacher Education • National System of Teacher Education

3. THE COLOMBIAN EDUCATION CONTEXT IN THE CONSTITUTION • The 1991 Constituion is the launching point to understand the last education changes in Colombia. It introduces these significant changes: • Defines the country as a Social State of Human Rights. • Recognizes its multi-cultural character • Defines education as a fundamental right • Refers to the teaching profession, its conditions and moral qualities and recognizes it as a fundamental actor in the poltiical life of the nation. • Seated in the General Law of Education, Law 115, 1994

4. General Education Law 115 of 1994 • Concieves of the educator as the “facilitator of the formation process, teaching and learning of students in agreement with the social, cultural, ethical and moreal expectations of the family and society” (Art. 104). • The educator should be taught with the highest scientific and ethical quality, develop the pedagogical theory and practice as a fundamental part of the knowledge of the educator; strengthen the field of pedagogic inquiry and specific knowledge; prepare teachers at the level of pre and post graduate study and for the different levels and forms of educational service (Art. 109).

5. 2. HISTORY OF TEACHER EUCATION • 19th Century • Conservative Republic • 1930s • 1950s • 1980s

6. 3. NATIONAL SYSTEM OF TEACHER EDUCATION (SNFE) • Understood as an adjoining of institutions, programs, methods, processes, and concepts that define their training, the government and non-government instances that drive themselves, the legal, social and academic norms that regulate inquiry action, information, evaluation, accreditation and financing(MEN, 1998: 15).

7. Components of SNFE FORMAL STRUCTURE • Normal subsystem • Subsystem of teacher education • Subsystem of accreditation • Subsystem of innovation and evaluation • Subsystem of inquiry and pedagogic knowledge production and strategic and technical development. NO FORMAL STRUCTURE

8. Normal Subsystem • Decree 3012 of 1997, that institutes the restructuring of Superior Normal Schools • Decree 272 of 1998: Brings about dispositions for the restructuring of Education Faculties. • Resolution 1036 of April 2004, that determins the characteristics of quality for educational programs

9. Teacher Education Systems Distinction of levels: • Normal view: Superior Normal School restructured as support institutions for initial teacher training. • Professional or University: The Pedagogic Universities and the Education Faculties are the only institutions that can grant professional titles in education or Licenciaturas.

10. Subsystem of Accreditation The general accreditation process has brought positive consequences for the teacher education institutes, among them they can formulate: • Change in the duration of main programs to licenciatura degrees: • Curriculum integration • Institutionalization of inquiry • The importance of understanding the nuclei of pedagogic knowledge. • The establishment of self-evalution that has generate a positive culture in the institutions

11. Subsystem of inquiry & production of pedagogic knowledge • Resolution 1036 of April 2004 determins that the teacher education programs should establish at the very least a line of inquiry. • The academic community in education has obtained progressive in Colciencias, instances that in actuality have recognized high level groups of inquiry in the education environment. • An important aspect, is that the distinct institutions have consolidades knots and roots of investigations to their own iniciative. • The work has been especially fruitful in planting the seed of investigation in the youth. • In actuality, the country contains 183 groups in the area of education, followed by medicine with 176 and by biology with 84.

12. Subsytem of Evaluation • For all the levels of superior education, the institutional practice of self-evaluation and pair external evaluation are indispensible requisites for accreditation and attainment of registry qualification and for the develoment of improvement plans. • The periodic evaluation of quality in the super education institutions realizes by means of the application of ECAES or quality exams for superior education, en whose elaboraton the different associated professional groups contribute for each area of knowledge. • In the case of education programs, the ECAES has been designed by the Colombian Association of Education Faculties ASOFADE and by the professors of National Pedagogic Universities. • The adjoining of the subsystem of evaluation necessarily drives the improvement of the training system and demands of all academic institutions in general and of the teachers in service the commitment with innovation.