Education and politics in the XIX century: the liberal-secular and conservative-catholic models

Abstract

It seems that the fight for political and ideological control of education has played a part in our country in the confrontation among political parties, the Church, the State and social sectors, with diverse interests, theoretical proposals, methodological strategies and concepts of the world in general and of education in particular. In Colombia the most intense military confrontation in the XIX century among the liberals, conservatives and the Catholic Church had as a main scenario education, to the point of considering it as the central factor of the civil war, 1876-77, or “Wars of the Schools”.

The liberals favored secular, compulsory and free education which would facilitate the education of citizens for the Republic and training of the labor force for the impulse of developing capitalism, education that articulated the civil ethics of duties and rights which would be the axis on which the construction of an authentic and modern republic would rotate. Unlike them, the conservatives with the support of the Church proposed an education guided by religion and catholic morals which would enhance the education of the faithful, the Church and citizens of a premodern authoritarian and strongly conservative republic based on Hispanic traditions. Not being able to solve this conflict through negotiation, given the fierce atmosphere of religious fanaticism and political sectarianism at that time, the civil war was the alternative to solving the aforementioned problem. Teachers and students both conservative and liberal participated in this war for the first time.