Higher education will reform with or without the government’s support, said Colombia’s Congress according to newspaper El Espectador on Tuesday.
Senate President Roy Barreras Montealegre held ongoing meetings with the country’s students in order to develop a project which will finance public higher education and allow more Colombians to access the system.
Students have marched in protest a number of times over the last year claiming that the government has not involved students and universities in the construction of a reform of Colombia’s higher education system, and that the authorities are continuing to push student loans instead of subsidized public education.
Last week in Colombia’s capital Bogota a vehicle was torched, while police were forced to block off major streets as students began rioting outside the National University in protest against the government privatizing Colombia’s public universities.
A year ago an educational reform presented in the House under pressure from the students was thrown out.