This system of racial segregation works so well that black people from the east experience high rates of poverty, unemployment, overcrowding, and high UBN, among other worrying variables of exclusion. However, in the Aguablanca District there are thousands of inhabitants who fight, in the words of researcher and activist Mauri Balanta, to tear down the fences that separate them from their right to the city.
Thanks to various organizational processes, it has been proposed as a solution to achieve a greater presence of higher education in eastern Cali. In this context, the construction of a District University will be fundamental.
A revolutionary dream
In the popular imagination of the people of the Aguablanca District, there is a revolutionary dream: to fight so that young people go to universities and that, in the territory, a higher education institution is built that allows this transformation.
Of course, it is not a whimsical dream. The problem of access to higher education in the Aguablanca District is enormous, since this territory is the size of cities like Armenia or Santa Marta, and, unfortunately, it only has one private university that offers 5 academic programs.
The little educational offer for the east of the city was skillfully capitalized by Jorge Iván Ospina, who was elected largely under the promise of a District University. He even proposed it as one of the mobilizing projects of his Development Plan: “Cali United for Life.”
However, amid many false starts, the former mayor did nothing to deconcentrate and increase the offer of university education. His “Everyone to study” program, at best, redistributed the existing offer.
Despite Jorge Iván Ospina’s delays, people have not stopped believing in this project. As a result of insistence, it was possible to include the District University project in the National Development Plan 2022-2026. Currently, it is already found in planning instruments such as the Multiannual Investment Plan.
Expectations are high, especially considering that Minister Aurora Vergara has fought against the dynamics of exclusion in the capital of Valle del Cauca. On November 3, 2023, advertisement that in 2024 840 billion would be invested in educational infrastructure, which will finance, among others, the first studies of a “university citadel for eastern Cali.”
Although it is good news, it is important that the minister clarify if it is a citadel for the District University or if it refers to the “liquid university” model, in which higher education institutions (public or private) use public infrastructure. to, in the words of education expert Diego Victoria, “park” programs, only committing to making them economically viable.
If it is the first option: congratulations. However, if it is the second option, it is worth insisting that eastern Cali does not need higher education programs to be “carried” or “parked” temporarily, as if it were a welfare program. For the Aguablanca District, the construction of an entity configured to address the dynamics and problems of this sector of the city is essential.
In this way, little by little, the vocations of the Cali District can be developed. It is necessary to build a university in the east, in the heart of where the possibility of education has historically been denied. Any other alternative is to delay efforts, resources, time and dreams unnecessarily.