The education we deserve is not the education we have: the problem of lack of quality in primary and secondary education in Colombia, 1903-1933

Abstract

This article identifies and explains the grounds of low quality in primary and secondary education during the thirty-year of conservative party government in the early 20th century in Colombia. Several intellectuals from that period identified these grounds and argued that such problems stemmed from the mix of eugenic factors related to racial and cultural amalgam that originated during the colonial period, the lack of high education faculties for teachers, the lack of social recognition of teachers and their low salaries. Those intellectuals proposed a structural reform to the educational system that could