Education
Sixty percent of students complete primary schooling (5 years) and move onto secondary schooling (6 years). Most primary schools are private. Approximately 80 percent of Colombian children enter school, but they usually join a preschool academy until age 6 and then go to school. The school year extends from February to November in all of the major cities and principal areas of the country, very few areas have school years that go from August to July. Primary education is free and compulsory for nine years for children between 6 and 12 years of age. The net primary enrollment (percentage of relevant age-group) in 2001 was 86.7 percent. The completion rate (percentage of age-group) for children attending elementary school (primaria) in 2001 totaled 89.5 percent. In many rural areas, teachers are poorly qualified, and only five years of primary school are offered. Secondary education (educación media) begins at age 11 and lasts up to six years. Secondary-school graduates are awarded the diploma (high-school diploma). Net secondary enrollment in 2001 was 53.5 percent. School life expectancy in 2001 was 11.1 years. Total public spending as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2001 was 4.4 percent – one of the highest rates in Latin America – as compared with 2.5 percent at the end of the 1980s. Government expenditures on education in 1999 totaled 19.7 percent of total government spending. The ratio of pupils to teachers in 2001 in primary school was 26:1 and in secondary school, 19:2. Colombia has 24 public universities. A total of 92.5 percent of the population is literate (male: 92.4 percent; female: 92.6 percent), according to a 2003 estimate. Literacy is at 93 percent in urban areas, but only 67 percent in rural areas. People in Colombia are educated in Spanish (see also Colombian Spanish). The second most spoken language is English.
Read more about this topic: Colombian People
Famous quotes containing the word education:
“... many of the things which we deplore, the prevalence of tuberculosis, the mounting record of crime in certain sections of the country, are not due just to lack of education and to physical differences, but are due in great part to the basic fact of segregation which we have set up in this country and which warps and twists the lives not only of our Negro population, but sometimes of foreign born or even of religious groups.”
—Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962)
“A President must call on many persons—some to man the ramparts and to watch the far away, distant posts; others to lead us in science, medicine, education and social progress here at home.”
—Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)
“From infancy, almost, the average girl is told that marriage is her ultimate goal; therefore her training and education must be directed toward that end. Like the mute beast fattened for slaughter, she is prepared for that.”
—Emma Goldman (1869–1940)