The impossibility of education in colombia to be a peace builder: a look from the critical thinking of Franz Hinkelammert

Abstract

This reflection article seeks to problematize the socially accepted and politically instrumentalized claim that education is a privileged tool for achieving peace in Colombia. For decades and given the Colombian armed conflict, solutions to the war have been sought, and responsibilities have been assigned that are sometimes not critically thought of. One of them is the call for education to promote, build and train agents of peace. But it must be questioned whether education can really fulfill this task, or rather, due to its rationality and praxis, contributes to maintaining a society where rivalry and selfishness prevail. This analysis is made through the study of Franz Hinkelammert's critical theory, which shows that such impossibility is due, first of all, to the fact that the rationality of education in Colombia is subsidiary to neoliberal economic rationality. In order to establish this theory, discourses, laws and socially accepted academic practices will be cited, reaching the conclusion that a different orientation of educational imaginings and their rationality is needed if education is to be a privileged means to achieve peace.