Experiences of university education in virtuality in the public and private context in Colombia

Resumen

Colombian basic, middle and higher education is governed by the Colombian Ministry of National Education (MEN). Higher Education Institutions are entities that have official recognition to be providers of the public service of higher education in the Colombian territory, whose legal nature is characterized by being of a public or private character. The former have general guardianship control as a public establishment and the latter enjoy constitutional and legal prerogatives that, even from the same jurisprudence, have had significant development in terms of scope, to the point of pointing out that these are organizations that belong to none of the branches of public power or private universities (2020). The current health crisis reveals the digital gap that was immersed in the Colombian educational system. According to the Ministry of Science and Technology -MINTIC, the digital gap is recognized as the socioeconomic difference between those communities that have access to ICTs and those that do not, in addition to the differences between groups according to their ability to use ICTs effectively, due to the different levels of literacy and technological capacity (MINTIC, 2019). Furthermore, this context implies that the digital gap is not closed in Colombia, as evidenced by the report on the digital gap monitoring project presented by MINTIC, but that until now the data on the digital divide is being configured to take action, idea that would be developed in this annuity. Despite this reality, the decision made worldwide was to continue with online classes regardless of the socioeconomic reality of the inhabitants in any region, and Colombia was no exception. Next, two experiences are described, developed in Colombian public and private universities, which are constituted in virtual training actions that incorporate methodological innovations in the development of classrooms in the human and exact sciences. From this reality, the experiences of the University of Pamplona and the University of the North in public and private virtuality are presented, respectively.