Of the 25 schools that the Educational Infrastructure Financing Fund (FFIE) announced it was going to build in Cali and Buenaventura, only three were completed. Yesterday, the educational communities of two of those schools protested to ask what happened to the works?
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One of the schools is the Cristóbal Colón Educational Institution (IE), located in the Mariano Ramos neighborhood, east of Cali. There, teachers, parents and students held a sit-in to make their voices heard. This community asks why the reconstruction of the Social Welfare headquarters, whose works began five years ago, is not yet ready.
“They sold us the idea that the project had all the security conditions to be executed in the shortest time possible. The officials of the Fund came from Bogotá to socialize the implementation of the long-awaited dream, presenting it to us, as the infrastructure work, not only the most modern in Colombia, but also the safest in contractual terms,” the professors recalled.
On that occasion they were assured that the works would be delivered within eight months. It should be noted that the FFIE is part of the Ministry of Education.
However, the contractors have defaulted and left the works abandoned. The works were 35% complete and are paralyzed, according to the Secretary of Education of Cali.
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While the college is being rebuilt, students have gone from side to side to receive classes. The Mayor’s Office of Cali leased a building where they currently receive classes. “Property, which although it is true is notoriously better than the previous one, it is also true that it presents a series of complexities that make the provision of educational services for our Children and Adolescents, a continuous risk of biosecurity”, say the teachers .
They will follow up
The Secretary of Education of Cali, José Darwin Lenis, spoke yesterday with the educational community of IE Cristóbal Colón, and they agreed that a committee will be formed to monitor and oversee the school’s infrastructure works.
In addition, next April 22, a meeting will be held with delegates from the Ministry of Education and the FFIE, in which the date for restarting the works will be defined.
Similar decisions were made during a meeting at the IE El Diamante, where there are not even designs for the works.
(Also read: They order the dismantling of a structure without a license in La Sagrada Familia in Cali)
The non-compliance of the contractors who were given the works of the schools in Cali has been going on for years. In 2019, the Comptroller’s Office, through the Departmental Management of Valle del Cauca, convened a table of stakeholders from Buenaventura and Cali, to allow them to take on the problems of the 25 schools that were prioritized in the process, in these cities.
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