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Negotiations between the state and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), and the possibility of signing an agreement – and, thus, of opening a post-conflict era – have made many of us in Colombia dream of a new country. To accomplish this dream, much hope has often been placed in education. But when it comes to proposing a clear path for education in the post-conflict era, more questions than answer arise. How can education contribute to the negotiated settlement of the conflict and to achieving a stable and lasting peace in Colombia?
People spend most of their childhood, adolescence and, particularly in developed countries, their early adulthood in a classroom. It is because of this fact that everything that happens in schools plays a decisive role in the acculturation of future generations. The task of building a country at peace requires the reviewing of the different forms of cultural violence - understood, according to Galtung (1990), as the ways of relating to others that have helped keep the conflict alive. In this sense, any effort to build peace must include the education sector as a lever for the cultural transformations the country needs when it is on the brink of signing the peace agreements. Here are some ideas that come from working closely with many educational centers in Colombia.
