Bogota, Colombia, 22-31 October 2012: With the support of the IBE, the Colombian government is implementing the second stage of the “Quality Inclusive Education in Colombia” project. This initiative is addressing educational practices that are exclusionary in relation to economic, cultural and ethnic differences of the population, by using inclusion as a means to avoid any kind of discrimination.
The upcoming activities will involve the Ministry of National Education of Colombia (MEN), the Empresarios por la Educación (EXE) foundation, the Saldarriaga Concha foundation, other organizations, and the IBE. This phase will strengthen national policies for inclusive education through: (i) a policy framework for the implementation of the project at the local, regional and national level; (ii) suggested methodologies to implement this policy; (iii) support profiles at the regional level for the implementation process and (iv) a capacity development strategy to strengthen institutional and curricular capacities at regional and local levels. The IBE is supporting these objectives by training national experts at a workshop and facilitating policy dialogue in a national education forum.
During the first stage in May 2012, IBE provided expertise at a national workshop on inclusive education in which the outcomes included an outline of a policy document on inclusive education; three policy proposals regarding inclusive curricula, inclusive schools and inclusive teachers; main strategies to move forward on the inclusive education agenda; and a basic outline of a roadmap.
