Development plans in the education sector in Colombia Planes de desarrollo en el sector educativo en Colombia

Abstract

In 1918 the President of the United States Woodrow Wilson had already briefly enunciated the notion of "development", by the way tutelado, but until the Second World War (1939-1945) was spoken of the evolution of the countries rather in terms of progress from "backwardness", characterized by "primitiveness" and misery with its painful consequences, to "progress", characterized by "civilization" and the prosperity that welfare brought with it.

Only a handful of countries, mostly North Americans and Europeans, were then in a state of progress and, in general, it was assumed that other countries would also be reaching such a state. How would they do that? Apparently they would do it in a providential way, perhaps slow but presumably natural and ineluctable. They would be enough to "let go and let do" and, if anything, strive to imitate the progressed blindly and as much as possible. Although colonialism still prevailed ostensibly, there was no clear conscience, no less public admission, that not a few of the nations that had made the most progress in the world had done so, to some extent, at the expense of the backwardness of others. And no real attention was paid to the oppressive inequality prevailing in each backward country to the detriment of the majority of the population.