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

  • The problem: Educational relevance — young people do not have the skills nor are they studying what companies in the region are looking for and need for their operations.
  • Why it matters: The employability of public school graduates is low — only four out of every ten Colombians manage to find employment in formal jobs because they lack comprehensive technical training and other relevant skills for professional development.
  • The solution: Young people must study what companies need: an academic curriculum must be consistent with the needs of the local labour market and teachers must receive regular training to keep up to date with this curriculum so that young people in the ninth, tenth and eleventh grades receive relevant technical training that increases their employability.

The Palmipilos programme

The Palmipilos programme was developed with the goal of improving and upgrading technical media programmes through quality, relevance, bilingualism and innovation. The training delivered in the programme is based on the needs of the region's business ecosystem — in the early stages of developing the programme, 70 companies were contacted to identify areas of knowledge that, in their opinion, should be included in the curriculum in order to match students’ skills with labour needs. The exercise revealed that the most useful fields, among others, are those connected to business logistics, software development, multimedia design and food production.

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The Secretary of Education of the Mayor's Office of Palmira and the Inter American Development Bank lead this programme in 2020-2023 alongside collaborators from the academic sector (Universidad Nacional, la Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana, el Instituto Técnico Agrícola, la Universidad Santiago de Cali y la Universidad del Valle), and from the private sector such as Asocaña, Cenicaña, Celsia, Fundación Corona, Fundación Luker, Ingenio Manuelita, Nutresa, Procaña and Propacífico. An interdisciplinary evaluation committee made up of several of these entities has made it possible for 533 young people from Palmira to benefit from the comprehensive training of Palmipilos.

The Palmipilos programme is taught by teachers trained in designing and implementing teaching strategies that will enhance students’ employability.

Thanks to an international cooperation budget of $495,000 USD managed with the Inter American Development Bank, 533 students from ninth, tenth and eleventh grades in public (state funded) schools in Palmira were selected by an interdisciplinary evaluation committee to be beneficiaries.

The programme curriculum to date

In 2021 the programme implemented a levelling of basic skills in language, mathematics and English. Students also took part in socio-emotional strengthening activities, with a gender and life project focus. The students were followed up at the end of the year to gauge the success of the programme to date and thereafter a permanence strategy was developed.

In 2022 the students began academic training in professional technical education with a focus on entrepreneurship, research methodology and socio-occupational training. Students also took part in English as a foreign language lessons and the socio-emotional training continued.

This year (2024) the programme began with internships, productive projects and social work and ventures were tailored according to the choices made by each student. The students also continue their technical training and English language activities.

Students are also now developing career-relevant technical skills in the areas of 2D animation, cooking and restoration, software development, multimedia for the sugar industry, sustainable agricultural production and the supply of goods and services.

Importantly, the Palmipilos programme is taught by teachers trained in designing and implementing teaching strategies that will enhance students’ employability, honing the skills that the labour market needs.

Lessons learned

The key lessons we learned in developing and implementing the Palmipilos programme include:

  • The importance of managing cooperation resources with multilateral banks.
  • The importance of the initial consultations we carried out with employers to identify the skills and characteristics companies are seeking.
  • The significance of the direct relationships we fostered with higher education institutions to develop connected programmes with the objective of boosting the competitiveness of the region.
  • The need to review and subsequently update technical media curriculum in public education to develop employable students.
  • The need to obtain resources and promote programmes that empower young people after their training at school, enabling them to understand their environments and potential careers.

Today the Palmipilos programme is proudly a national and international reference for public entities of educational resources and multilateral banking (such as the Inter American Development Bank). The programme’s success in developing highly employable students with the skills for success in the local jobs market raises the important question of why more collaborative efforts are not encouraged.

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