Addressing inequality in education: a key element to influence social mobility

Abstract

Colombia is a case sui generis in Latin America, as for social and educational mobility. While in other countries that depends on the social, educational and cultural status of the families, in Colombia it also depends on the social and economical status of population in terms of quantity, quality and distribution of income. The paradox is that in Colombian economy is not only strong compared to the rest of the countries but it has had an important growth which would mean great social mobility and, possibly, great education mobility. Then ¿Why is there such a low social and education mobility in the country? ¿What are the policies, actions and guidelines that need to be taken into account to address these problems? ¿Where does inequality of the education system lie in? There are gaps in each of the levels of the education system, there are marked differences in quality, access, coverage and continuity in different sectors of the education system and the difference in training by gender are still marked, as well as the results obtained in basic competencies.