Amid presidential debates, columnist Nicolás Ordoñez Ruiz highlights urgent challenges in public education, such as PAE funding, poor rural infrastructure, and school dropout. These issues could become structural hurdles for the next government if not addressed promptly. Declining royalty revenues complicate sustaining key programs.
Columnist Nicolás Ordoñez Ruiz, in his article published on January 10, 2026, in Occidente.co, stresses the need to focus presidential debates on public early, basic, and secondary education. He identifies critical variables, including funding for the School Feeding Program (PAE), which reached 80% coverage in 2024 with 5.8 million beneficiaries. However, the sharp drop in royalty revenues—from 9.5 trillion pesos in 2022 to 1.4 trillion in 2024, over an 85% decline due to reduced oil exploitation and Brent prices—creates regional budgetary challenges.
This will force the new government, starting in the second half of 2025 and continuing into 2026, to make urgent decisions to sustain the PAE, vital for school retention and reducing dropout among vulnerable groups. Ordoñez Ruiz also points to infrastructure issues in rural areas: only about 40% of rural schools have constant potable water, compared to 70% in urban areas, with many lacking sanitation and reliable electricity. Without these basic conditions, retaining children in classrooms or achieving quality education is impossible.
School dropout persists despite demographic trends: births fell from 670,000 in 2015 to 445,000 in 2024, a 33% drop per DANE data. Barriers such as inadequate infrastructure, desks, blackboards, and teachers—due to bureaucratic rigidity in vacancies—hinder enrollment in public schools. He cites Santander's historic record in teacher occupancy as an example.
Ordoñez Ruiz calls for presidential programs with concrete budgets and unified actions with governors and mayors to drive an inclusive educational revolution that closes gaps and ensures complete trajectories. Failing to address these 'chicharrones' could trap the country in poverty and inequality, overlooking education as the most profitable investment for the nation's future.
