Colombia Case Study | 171
government. This function is very broad, allowing most investment projects to be included in this rubric. In practice, for reasons that go beyond the distribution of roles (such as lack of reliable information and poor-quality school improvement plans), many initiatives are not coordinated or aligned with the needs of schools (Cerdán-Infantes and Zavala 2017). Finally, responsibility for curriculum design and teaching methods, a crucial function for education quality and learning, is allocated jointly to the national government, which is responsible for designing and setting standards, and school principals, who are in charge of designing and implementing their own curriculum within their schools. CTEs are given no functions related to curriculum design or teaching methods; therefore, they can choose whether to invest in these important activities. Schools, however, are not given any funding for this important task. Evidence of the existence of coordination problems can be found in the various guidelines that have been produced by the national government to illustrate to local entities the ways in which they can use the resources they receive through the transfer system (see table 7.4). Table 7.4 shows clearly that many functions overlap among entities, including the responsibility for financing utilities, the internet, pedagogical needs, transportation, the food program, endowments, and school maintenance and construction. The problems that arise from the assignment of roles and responsibilities to different levels of government are compounded by the misalignment between these roles and the financing system. The next section explores how the system is financed and how these misalignments create significant difficulties in improving access and quality.
HOW IS THE SYSTEM FINANCED? Trends in overall education spending Total public spending for basic education and upper secondary education has not changed significantly as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP) since 2010, moving from 3.2 percent in 2010 to 2.8 percent in 2018. A decrease in the number of students enrolled in the system in recent years, however, from 9.4 million in 2010 to 8.2 million in 2018, resulted in an increase in real per student spending from US$743 in 2010 to US$990 in 2018, a 33 percent increase in 8 years (see figure 7.5). Per student expenditures for primary and secondary education in Colombia are similar to those of Mexico. When compared to Chile, however, data show that Colombia is behind in per student expenditures, although the gap fell from US$1,717 in 2013 to US$1,289 in 2015. Per student expenditures for primary education and postsecondary (nontertiary) education in OECD countries are three times those of Colombia and, the differences are not significant, moving from US$6,174 in 2013 to US$6,134 in 2015. Compared to other countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, as a percentage of GDP, the level of public education
