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  • The educational model “Escuela Nueva” (New School), designed in the 1970s by Colombian teachers and widely applied in the rural sector, in particular in the coffee sector, has become a world reference.

The “Escuela Nueva” (New School) model reaches every year about 55,000 children and young people in the rural sector of the department of Caldas. After its creation in the 1970s in the Santander department, this education model spread rapidly across Colombia and became a world reference.

In Caldas, the FNC Departmental Coffee Growers Committee adopted “Escuela Nueva” in 1982 for increasing access of all children in rural zones to primary education.

With more than three decades of success, now “Escuela Nueva” has important partners such as the Caldas government, the Manizales municipality, the Caldas Hydroelectric Power Plant (Chec) and Isagen.

In this coffee department, all children have full education coverage, i.e., an educational institution, from kindergarten to ninth grade (high school), close to their rural district, regardless of how far it is from the town or urban area.

In addition, and thanks to good results and quality work, this model now comprises higher education, providing young people with the “Universidad en el Campo” (University in the Countryside), which also provides them with a nearby institution and access to technical or technological training programs.


Practical and relevant model

The most interesting feature of this model is that coffee production is included in all the student’s curriculum, i.e. math, English and social sciences, among other subjects, address the topic with children’s and youth’s commitment to developing a project applicable on their farms and continued support from teachers and the Extension Service, the FNC technical assistance service.

So, they practice at home, with their family’s support, what they learn at school, involving the entire community. Relevance and generational change in the rural sector is another great virtue of this model.

The Caldas Committee has provided continued support to this model in most of Colombia’s rural sector and has shared it with more than 10 countries such as Peru, Chile, Nicaragua, Mexico, Vietnam and Morocco.

Last year, representatives from the Government of Vietnam visited Colombia to learn about this model. Through the Caldas Coffee Growers Committee, the FNC has guided the southeastern Asian country in implementing this model.

The same will be done with Morocco, working with its government to offer this educational model to children and young people in the African country, bringing them education as part of the State’s responsibilities.

Organizations such as Unesco, Unicef and the World Bank have advised their customers to learn from this experience. Actually, “Escuela Nueva” is widely recognized as a successful educational model.

And it is only the most visible of the many education projects supported by the FNC to educate new generations of producers in the Colombian countryside.