This article is written by Daniela Reina, former Commissioner of International Cooperation for the Mayor's Office of Palmira.

  • The problem: Study positions offered by public schools in Palmira have, in the past, been influenced by subjective and even by transactional systems.
  • Why it matters: The new “I Choose My School” pilot system benefits both students and their parents because it provides them with general and specific information about public schools and offers them the opportunity to choose the schools that best fit their interests.
  • The solution: “I Choose My School” is a system that works autonomously, through an algorithm, to assign study positions in public schools so that students have the opportunity to study close to their homes.

The “I Choose My School” system

“I Choose My School” is based on a digital system implemented in 2021 and 2022 that assigns study positions within public (state funded) schools in Palmira. It is a centralised application process available for the transition grades in public schools. All students can apply through a digital platform to all the institutions of their interest without having to present themselves personally.

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The “I Choose My School” programme was developed with the Inter-American Development Bank, Colombia’s Ministry of Education and Consilium Bots, an international cooperator which created the platform for this pilot system. This collaboration consolidated tools such as the quota allocation algorithm and the educational explorer of public schools to create a new holistic system. As a result of its precision in the information it collects, its innovation in tracking quotas and the feedback it provides to both students and parents, it contains the most accurate and complete data available on public schools in this geographic area.

This programme is still a pilot for the transition grades, but the intention is for the system to be replicated across all other grades.

The platform was built to make it easier for parents to choose the school where they would like their child to study. This is the reason why the system is based on criteria like the shifts available, the location and the characteristics of institutions, such as their educational approach and facilities. The system makes an assignment based on the preferences listed by each applicant and assigns a school according to that information, providing every participant with the same conditions and opportunities to study at any public school in Palmira.

This programme has been a challenge for both educators and parents, taking into consideration that registrations had previously been carried out in a very traditional way when parents had to spend hours researching schools. However, with “I Choose My School”, the objective was to consolidate a more efficient process. It is important to mention that this programme is still a pilot for the transition grades, but the intention is for the system to be replicated across all other grades. But in order to achieve that, we must consolidate a fully operational platform capable of processing more than 43,000 students in Palmira’s public educational system.

Coordinated systems

There has been a growing interest in the use of coordinated systems that facilitate applications, assignments and enrolments at all educational levels.

These coordinated systems allow the digitisation, registration and validation of a large number of people, which increases the efficiency of the coverage processes of public entities, access to education, information systematisation and transparency of the process. In addition, such a large volume of data provides valuable and detailed information in real-time, such as the distribution of applicant families (the demand) and the number of public schools with available study positions (the supply).

In the transition from traditional processes to a new system, close support from local governments to parents is needed so that they understand all the benefits of the system and leave behind any preconceptions they may have about digital processes.

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