Education is not just numbers and tests, but neither are cement and bricks. It must be the communion of interests of a society and the ability to adapt to future challenges.

1. Pending subjects
Education is not just numbers and tests, but neither are cement and bricks. It must be the
communion of interests of a society and the ability to adapt to future challenges.
Education in Colombia remains a pending issue in many aspects. Not only is the dilemma of universal
coverage, but the need to continue strengthening programs such as "From Zero to Forever", and other
initiatives to close the gap in equity and education from early childhood.
In this sense, the race for quality education occurs not only in higher education programs - as is
sometimes mistakenly believed - but also starts from the first thousand days, in order to have a sustained
and integral development that complements the skills we want for our future professionals and citizens.
We have concentrated a lot on the dilemma about the quantitative or qualitative nature of the training, the
discussion between the mathematization of knowledge or the amplification of the context in a broad
spectrum of the worldview that the social sciences can give us. However, this cannot
be an excuse to continue with lags before measurements, which in the end should not be the premise for
an education policy, because the standardization of tests or the possibility of scoring in certain types of
exams does not reflect the true health of the educational system.
Just as Finland overturned its system which was the most behind in Europe and today defines the stamp
on global education, the regional middle powers and the emerging states already know the tool that will
lead them to the path of development: the educational policy.
Innovation, soft skills, areas of creativity and culture, sports, music, were seen as "fillings" in the
academic curriculum, and we erroneously think that by saturating rigid subjects with students we would
develop the best competences and, therefore, the best skills, but in reality education is a much more
complex equation where variables such as the home, the family, the environment, the environment (rural
or urban), the economic situation and the labor market influence.
Do not abandon humanism, balance quantitative and qualitative sciences, resume the path of integral
formation, and include technology, crafts and arts as requirements, must be elements that public policies
in education must collect.
Better facilities will generate better results, safe school and academic environments, multiple classrooms
and shared green areas. In short, education is not just numbers and tests, but neither are cement and
bricks. It must be the communion of interests of a society and the ability to adapt to future challenges.

2. The school as a place where people are held for eight hours or universities as factories of titles should not
be tolerable schemes. The formation of the university is the highest stage where the processes that start
from early childhood must be crystallized, complemented by sports and culture and developed with the
skills in mathematics, literacy, logic and humanities.
Programs such as "Ser Pilo Paga" cannot be disconnected from the context and socioeconomic realities
nor can they be social experiments of temporary location transferring all the responsibility to a budgetary
or welfare issue.
The beneficiary student must be able to have a psychosocial accompaniment, some food and congruous
needs covered, a possibility of real integration, and not be delocalized from their space to a different
environment that will marginalize them more, and, therefore, possibly affect your psychic condition,
which will not allow you the expected return.
It's good to have university cities, with dormitories, laundries, restaurants, libraries and sports fields
where you can integrate academic life to a unique experience; without traffic, without long trips, with
total concentration; the university in the broad sense of its word, universality.
We all have a role to play in this issue: educators, universities, families, the State, but above all the
student. There are pending subjects, but we have to continue pushing development in what is worthwhile:
human capital and education.