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Law March
Compulsory subjects across all national public schools Spanish, Latin, Greek, French, English and an indigenous language, the one with most speakers depending on the region where the school was located. -
Extinction of Latin in schools
Ending decade for Latin as a subject in Colombian schools. This well-intended law did not have any practical effects and it was followed by a series of reforms that would inevitably lead to the progressive suppression of Latin, until its total extinction at the end of 1970 -
Visit if Colombia´s President to France.
Decision to adopt French as a compulsory subject for secondary school (grades 10 and 11).This did not spark any practical improvement in the students’ development of bilingualism either, and ten years later, in a report issued by the British Council, the conclusion was that the Ministry of Education had no firm foreign language policy for students, and its decisions were a result of political pressures rather than educational considerations -
The English Syllabus
corresponds to a seminal effort to improve foreign language teaching and learning in Colombia. The plan attempted to address students’ low levels of proficiency; lack of clear and feasible objectives in schools; the need to renovate language teaching and learning; and the absence of updated materials and textbooks. Called for a communicative approach to language teaching, and encouraged school administrators to consider the possibility of including other languages in their curricula. -
British Council´s Report
A Survey of English Language Teaching and Learning in Colombia: A Guide to the Market.in this sense the report affirmed that the government of that moment did not have firm policies, regarding the teaching of the foreign languages and that the students who graduated from the 11th grade, did not have the necessary level for what was required for that then. -
Colombia´s new Political Constitution.
Open political recognition of all indigenous languages, and of the Colombia’s multilingual and cultural richness. this legislative act was important; since on the one hand it promulgated the education like a fundamental right for all the citizens, and on the other it propitiated the educational decentralization; giving the institutions a little more autonomy, likewise depriving them of the prevailing monopoly of the Catholic Church. -
The COFE Project
The plan attempted to address students’ low levels of proficiency; lack of clear and feasible objectives in schools; the need to renovate
language teaching and learning; and the absence of updated materials and textbooks. This reform introduced an English syllabus for grades 6-9 and 10-11, called for a communicative approach to language teaching, and encouraged school administrators to consider the possibility of including other languages in their curricula. -
General Law of Education.
Ley 115 de Febrero 8 de 1994. Por la cual se expide la ley general de educación, broadly states the acquisition of conversation and reading elements at least in a foreign language as a desirable goal. -
Ending of COFE Project
Licenciaturas were modied thanks to the initiative but no major changes were perceived in national students' proficiency. -
National Bilingualism Programme.
First inclusion of the Common European Framework. Different from previous projects, this program would constitute a long term, far reaching, and comprehensive policy complemented by a presidential plan called “Educational Revolution” (Ministerio de Educación Nacional, 2008). It would start to have an influence not only in schools and universities, but also outside the formal education system. -
Bilingualism Law
Various articles from the previous General Education Law in 1994 were modifed to reflect the horizon of English as a technical tool for employment. -
Colombia Very Well
Programa Nacional de Inglés Colombia Very Well 2015-2025. 1.3 billion Colombian pesos for ten years. This plan, as a nation-wide initiative, with the united sources of other departments and ministries (ICT and employment) clearly suggested an innate philosophy of employability and job-training as the sole drive for education. The pivotal reasons are based on the need to supply the business process outsourcing sector (BPO), tourism and technical-level employment vacancies. -
Colombia Bilingüe.
Some traits of CVW are kept (textbook materials such as English Please, and the Common European Framework) but ample and clear information of its overall scope and strategies for implementation have not been released.
