The Colombian Institute of Educational Credit and Technical Studies Abroad (Icetex), the entity to which many Colombians go to access education, would be going through orna strong financial crisis that could affect the credits of more than 200,000 young people in the country.
(See: The period that Icetex will have to explain the delays in drawings of its credit lines).
Two specific situations would be impacting the entity. The first, according to the newspaper EL TIEMPO, is that In the middle of the university enrollment period, the Icetex “has not opened the call for the 2025-1 semester because they have not transferred 1 billion pesos destined for lines of credit for constitutionally protected populations (ethnic minorities) and in vulnerable conditions“.
These lines, recalled the aforementioned medium, are the ones that have “interest rate subsidies, support subsidy and the possibility of capital forgiveness of between 25% and 50%“.
Icetex
Likewise, EL TIEMPO stated that It was predicted that the Ministry of Education would provide 1.5 billion pesos for these special lines, but it only allocated 480,000 million pesos. “leaving about 30,000 people who would enter in the first semester of 2025 without the possibility of studying and renewing another 180,000 who already received from previous semesters and are waiting to renew.“.
(See: What the Government says about the supposed cut of resources to Icetex).
The call for the first semester of next year is expected to be for 35,000 places: 30,000 for special programs and 5,000 for financing with own resources and without subsidies or aid. However, if there is no solution and the full money is not transferred, the credits would only be activated for the second group, EL TIEMPO indicated.
The second situation is that thousands of Icetex users have stated that they have been notified by their universities that The tuition money has not been transferred for the 2024-2 period, so they could not continue studying in the first semester of 2025.
The resources, in this case, would be in the order of 420,000 million pesos and had to come from the Ministry of Finance. It is known that this amount was already approved, but The problems in the Nation’s finances have delayed its delivery.
(see: ‘Artificial intelligence cannot be used as an excuse not to study’).
“There is a rationing process of the PAC (Annual Cash Programming) due to all the difficulties that exist in terms of cash. There is a box that is dammed, but the Ministry of Finance is making every effort to deliver the available box to the Ministry of Education“he explained about it Ricardo Bonilla, Ministry of Finance.
Ricardo Bonilla, Minister of Finance.
Complaints and responses about the crisis at Icetex
Green party representative Catherine Juvinao She was one of the first to refer to the crisis at Icetex and stated that the Government would be “bottling” the education of hundreds of thousands of young people.
“President Petro, it cannot be that you, who came to power with the banner of education and students, are currently leaving more than 200,000 young people who are studying a career thanks to their credit with Icetex ‘hanging by the brush’“said the congresswoman, who added that The entity’s budget for 2025 would be cut by more than 1 billion pesos.
From the Government, for his part, the Minister of Education, Daniel Rojas, followed the line of the Minhacienda and denied rumors about an alleged cut in resources to Icetex, arguing that the delay in the transfers is due to a “rescheduling” in the allocation of cash by the financial portfolio.
(See: Low productivity and social gaps continue to slow down the country’s competitiveness).
“The versions that claim that resources of $432,000 million were cut to Icetex in 2024 are false. Students can rest assured, since these transfers were requested and rescheduled by the Ministry of Finance for the coming months. Don’t be fooled!“Rojas said.
The official also said that Icetex is not part of his sector, despite the fact that he, as Minister of Education, He chairs the board of directors of the institute in charge of providing educational credits.
Given this position, Representative Juvinao reappeared on scene and assured Rojas that, according to Law 1002 of 2005, “Icetex is linked to the Ministry of Education due to its special nature and is attached to the Ministry of Finance“.
However, the Mineducación insisted that this is not the case, based on Decree 492 of 2020, in which it is said that Icetex “is linked to the Ministry of Finance and not to the Ministry of Education”. This, said the newspaper EL TIEMPO, would occur through the Bicentenario Group, which is a mixed economy company with a special regime, linked to the Ministry of Finance and Public Credit, which was created in the previous government and which includes entities such as Banco Agrario de Colombia and Bancóldex.
The Minister of Education, Daniel Rojas Medellín.
The Attorney General’s Office asks for explanations
The Attorney General’s Office He gave Icetex until Monday, November 25 to explain the delays in the transfer of credits.
“Detailed information has been required on the allocation, programming and disbursement of resources intended for the financing of educational credits for the second semester of 2024 and for the year 2025.”, commented the Public Ministry, which carried out an inspection at the offices of the educational entity last Thursday.
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