Historical conditions of ICETEX emergence in Colombia

Abstract This study explores the socio-political, economic and educational context in which the Instituto Colombiano de Crédito Educativo y Estudios Técnicos en el Exterior (Colombian Institute of Educational Credit and Technical Studies Abroad) was created. Studying the historical conditions allows us to answer the questions of why and how this institution arose in Colombia. Based on the Foucauldian assumptions on genealogy and the conditions of possibility, the study of this institution proposes its emergence to be an effect of several elements, which are approached critically. To this end, the article is divided into two sections wherein the idea of the creation of the Institute and the experiences it went through are analysed, to then deal with the materialisation of this idea in relation to the conditions of the Colombian environment.


Introduction
By late 1940s, Colombia faced a wave of acts of violence between "liberals" and "conservatives" that became a maelstrom of greater virulence during the period known as the Age of Violence. This was a period wherein both the passions and resentment between the traditional parties, the Liberal and the Conservative, intensified the rancour 1 among their supporters, mostly the impoverished urban and rural population. This period (1948)(1949)(1950)(1951)(1952)(1953)(1954)(1955)(1956)(1957)(1958)(1959)(1960)(1961)(1962)(1963)(1964) could sufficiently leave a mark on national history owing to its impact in terms of both the cost of human lives lost, more than 200,000 victims, and the socio-economic reconfiguration of the main cities from the arrival of hundreds of displaced families, especially from rural areas 2 thus contributing to what Caballero calls an "informal urbanisation" 3 by being located irregularly on the periphery of large cities, generating the thickening of urban poverty belts. The displacement of the population generated an agrarian reform in reverse, that is, a new concentration of rural land in a few hands, because "During the development of this phenomenon, thousands of peasants are killed or evicted from their land with the most violent methods" 4 by "landowners [who] promoted the recovery, by force, of large portions of land". 5 In the 1950s, Colombia's population comprised 12,379,910 inhabitants, that is, 7.13% of the population of Latin America, which at that time already had 161 million inhabitants. 6 Then, not only the bipartisan violence unleashed mainly in the departments of Santander, Boyacá, Tolima, Huila, Viejo Caldas, Valle del Cauca, and Cauca that left countless dead 7 affected the Colombian population, but also poverty, as aforementioned, made a dent in a large part of the citizenry. "In 1950, Colombia had one of the worst records in terms of income distribution, as its Gini coefficient of 0.57 implied one of the highest concentrations in the world" 8 -considering that this indicator measures the degree of economic inequality in a society, establishing a range between 0 and 1, 0 being full equality, and 1 being the opposite value. This is better understood if we consider that 4.6% of the population subject to income tax has 40% of that income, which ensures a North American standard of living (average annual income equivalent to approximately US$2,200), or 5,900 pesos per person. 9 Contrario sensu, "The great mass of the population (78%)-farmers, wage earners and employers of craft industries, domestic service-must be content with a lower standard of living, between $280.00 and $500.00 per person and per year". 10 In the midst of these evident economic disparities, the expansion of formal employment in industry or services was insufficient to absorb the greater labour supply derived from population growth and internal migration, resulting mainly from the phenomenon of violence. 11 During this period, governments with liberal and conservative ideologies took turns in power. Moreover, at that time, there was a military coup led by General Gustavo Rojas Pinilla in 1953, a government military junta (1957), after the resignation of the general, and a pact (Sitges) called the National Pact or Front, with which the leaders of both traditional parties Laureano Gómez (Conservative) and Alberto Lleras Camargo (Liberal) settled differences and agreed on the peaceful transfer of power. 12 These governments had to face the challenge of modernising the country, in the midst of not only violence but also the vicissitudes of centuries of economic, scientific and technical backwardness that made Colombia an underdeveloped country.
In this political and economic context, education, in particular higher education, could make the difference between underdevelopment and development in Colombia, maximising the faith expressed by political leaders such as Truman in scientific and technological knowledge to end poverty and human suffering: "I believe that we should make available to peace-loving peoples the benefits of our store of technical knowledge in order to help them realise their aspirations for a better life". 13 For this scientific and technological development to be possible, the relevant factor was education.
In this sense, it is necessary to highlight that "since the 30s of the last century, the priority was given to higher education in order to respond to the urbanisation process and the development needs of the country". 14 In this horizon, public and private universities were created in several regions of the country, such as the Universidad de Caldas y la Universidad del Atlántico (1943), the Universidad del Valle (1945), the Universidad Industrial de Santander and the Universidad de los Andes (1948). Similarly, national universities were created, such as the National Pedagogical University in Bogota and the Pedagogical and Technological University in Tunja in 1953, both public. 15 According to Lebret (1958), by 1954, Colombia had 106 Establishments (faculties), of which 70 were official and 36 private, "11,996 higher-level students studied. This figure compared with that of 1946 shows a significant increase of 63%" 16 ; however, Lebret further stated that: Neither the content of the teaching, nor the spirit that inspires it, nor the structure of its faculties, corresponds with Colombia's phase of development. The country currently needs researchers to discover and learn to use its natural wealth, engineers for the evolving industry, agronomists to modernise agriculture, economists to guide its development and sociologists to correctly interpret its aspirations and tensions. 17 While these social, political and economic circumstances took place, the Colombian Institute of Technical Specialisation Abroad (ICETEX) was created in Colombia, under the government of Mariano Ospina Pérez, who had a conservative political ideology, reflecting in Decree 2586 of 1950 the idea long caressed by its promoter, Dr Gabriel Betancour. However, owing to the contingencies generated by the violence, this idea would only be launched a couple of years later by Gustavo Rojas Pinilla, General protagonist in the 1953 coup d'état.
This article explores the socio-political, economic and educational context in which ICETEX was created. After seventy years of operation of this Institute, it is possible to affirm that educational credit has been strengthened in the country through loans for undergraduate, graduate and specialized studies both inside Colombia and abroad, reaching five million users. The Institute has responded to the extent of its possibilities to the objective which it was founded for. It proposed to grant opportunities to access higher education for Colombian youth regardless of their economic condition or place of origin, based on the idea that social tensions in a nation originate in inequality at the time of accessing education.
The study of the historical conditions allows answering the questions of why and what for this Institution arose in Colombia. Based on Foucaultian assumptions about genealogy and the conditions of the possibility, the study of this pioneering institution in the world is proposed. Since its emergence as an effect of various contextual elements, which are approached critically. By this means, a topic that has not been addressed in Colombian historiography is addressed and that is of vital importance to understand both the history of institutions and education in the country.
Regarding the sources that were used for the development of this research, in first place are those of a legal nature, which can be found in the official newspapers: Official Gazette, Constitutional Gazette, Congressional Gazette. The institutional sources refer to those testimonies produced by ICETEX itself that, in the exercise of its internal administration and the development of its functions, generates spontaneously as a result of its administrative function. Among them are, first, the "institutional memory", referring to the compilation of written sources other than legal norms. Secondly, the missionary sources, whose information is supported by archival documents of the entity. Finally, there are the sources related to the entity, but which have not been produced by it, and are external studies on it. These are texts that address issues related to the missionary function that ICETEX fulfills from other sides of the academy; or those dealing with general topics that contribute to understanding the political, economic and social context of the entity.
In summary, the purpose of this study to place the historical conditions in the framework of which the Colombian Institute of Technical Specialisation Abroad was created, using document analysis. To this end, this paper is divided into two parts. First, the situation of Gabriel Betancur Mejía is addressed and how his own experiences led him to propose the creation of the Institute. Second, the circumstances within the country that allowed ICETEX to become operational are reviewed.

A loan backed by my future
In 1942, Gabriel Betancur Mejía 18 requested financial support from the president of the Colombian Tobacco Company, Cipriano Restrepo Jaramillo, to pursue a postgraduate degree abroad, as he could not afford to do so. 19 Betancur, who at that time was the manager of the Revista Javeriana, travelled to Medellín to meet with Restrepo Jaramillo to ask for support to continue his studies abroad. He reasoned that if the motto of the company was, "to progress it is necessary to serve", surely, they would be interested in supporting him in his life project.
Betancur only had a letter of introduction from the Rector in charge of the Institute of International Education along with his qualifications as a guarantee to support his plans. After the difficulties in getting the appointment, Restrepo Jaramillo received him in the corridor that led to his office, reviewed the documents and asked him what he wanted. "My answer was my request was for 'a loan backed by my future'. So, he told me that this was a peculiar request but that he liked the way I presented it". 20 The idea of the loan backed by the student's future was so interesting for the president of the Company that he decided to organise other appointments such that Betancur could present it to the other members of the Board of Directors. "He recommended that I talk to them and tell them exactly the same thing that I had told him and that I see him again after the next Board of Directors" meeting; I did exactly that'. 21 One of the members of the board, Gonzalo Mejía, and manager of UMCA (Urabá, Medellín Central Airways), a subsidiary of Pan American Airways, proposed Betancur in New York as a candidate for a Bogota-Miami travel scholarship, from which he would benefit. The idea presented by Betancur also resonated with the rest of the members of the Board, and they unanimously decided to grant him the loan of 1,000 USD that he had requested. "For me, at that moment, the Education Loan was born". 22 After the approval of the loan by the Board of Directors, Betancur returned to Bogota to complete his degree work on the coffee quota agreement and ended up graduating on 5 September 1942. By the end of September, he was on his way to the United States to study his specialisation in Public Administration at the Maxwell Graduate School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University, where he would have William D. Mosher as dean. According to Betancur, in addition to the need to take English courses, this meant adapting to a new academic system that required complete dedication along with a new cultural and university dimension that would mark his life. Beyond the mere biographical importance that this could imply, Betancur's words show the relevance of this moment for the development of the project that would become ICETEX: The accumulation of knowledge and experiences made me understand the enormous responsibility that I had owing to the great privilege that Divine Providence had granted me, as very few Colombians specialised abroad. The Universidad Javeriana had formed in me an awareness of social solidarity. This led me to ask myself what I could do so that other young Colombians could also enjoy the same opportunity as I did. The answer was to start designing an entity that would make it easier for professionals and students to study or specialise abroad through loans that they would pay themselves upon their return to Colombia in instalments and with reasonable interest rates. 23 Betancur thought of creating a revolving social solidarity fund that would have selection criteria based on the applicants' academic merits and the importance of their studies for Colombian needs. In this way, it considered the creation of an official and decentralised entity that would have its own resources and legal status, governed by a Board of Directors composed in a balanced manner by representatives of both the public and private sectors, including one of the most crucial elements, away from patronage and politicking. From these basic ideas and thanks to the discussions developed in class, the project became more complex: I was able to fulfil my initial aspirations by transferring to the area of economic studies and obtaining my master's degree there, but through these studies, combined with the events in Colombia, I highlighted the great importance of what it meant for a society, to have for the execution of its great policies, the development of a State that is solid enough due to the technification of its structure, to guarantee the progress of the nation to which it must serve. 24 Dean Mosher advised Betancur that his thesis for the master's degree in public administration should be on the "Project for the creation of the Colombian Institute for Advanced Studies Abroad", which he developed under the direction of Professor Robert L. Steadman and completed at the end of 1944. One of the difficulties for the development of the thesis was the "absolute lack of bibliography on educational credit or student loans" 25 revealed the novelty of the proposal and the importance it would have for Colombia and the world.
For Betancur, his project was an attempt to offer a plan to organise, encourage and coordinate the training of Colombian graduate students abroad. From his own experiences as a foreign student in the United States and combined with his studies in public administration, he formed the basis for what would become his thesis. 26 The proposal was based on understanding Colombia as an agricultural country that since 1930 had begun to experience a great boom in manufacturing production, implying the need to attract foreign capital, as well as the generation of human capital, further necessitating new knowledge and technical skills. Regarding this last element, Betancur's thesis was justified, since it was believed that the training of technicians and their expansion of skills, both quantitatively and qualitatively, would result in attracting capital. Betancur identified as a problem the way in which the country tried to meet the demand for qualified personnel in different knowledge fields, but especially those related to manufacturing, mining, commerce, banking, agriculture and forests.
As Betancur himself mentioned, there were very few Colombians who could specialise outside the country. At that time there were two types of organisations that assisted Colombia in training graduate students abroad. One comprised government units and the other, national and foreign private organisations. The first group included the contracts of the different ministries with graduate students, as well as the aid granted by public universities to outstanding students. In the second case, there was the aid granted by companies to graduate students such that they could continue their studies abroad, and the scholarships and subsidies granted by the Institute of International Education, a pioneer entity in student exchange worldwide. 27 Both systems had various drawbacks. In the first, with which the Colombian government promised to support students in a foreign university, students were obliged to work for the government for a certain period of time after finishing their studies. However, it used to be due to patronage relations between candidates and the government official who awarded the contract, so that academic merit was excluded as a selection criterion and only a small, privileged group could obtain this benefit. In addition, the lack of a more structured system impeded attention to the benefited students so many times that they did not have incentives for their efforts to be properly recognised. Similarly, the frequent changes of personnel in the governmental spheres meant that upon a student's return they would no longer find the official they had contracted with, which left the student disoriented and possibly without the political connection that they previously had.
As for the aid given by public universities, although they did consider all their students and their qualities and student merits prevailed, the amount of money they had was extremely limited, in total it only reached 1,000 dollars. Thus, the student had to pay expenses such as travel, school fees, maintenance, books and extra expenses. According to Betancur's accounts, at that time the travel expenses to any educational centre abroad cost at least 400 dollars, and the pension, on average, another 400 dollars; therefore, after covering these costs, the student was left with 200 dollars for the remaining expenses, which was certainly insufficient. 28 As in the previous case, the lack of a structured system meant that the student did not have adequate information when choosing a university, nor that attention was paid to students who had already benefited. Furthermore, upon returning from completing their courses, students arrived without an immediate possibility of employment.
As regards the second system, few graduate students hired by certain companies were sent abroad for training and at the end of their studies, they returned to the companies to work for them; however, the lack of funds made this option very difficult and unlikely. Furthermore, students sponsored by the Institute of International Education were chosen based on their academic merits and any student in Latin America could apply to the selection committee. The organisation of the Institute helped students to enter the most convenient university according to their needs and offered its constant support to the student during their period of adaptation to the country in which they were going to study, including an insurance policy in case of illness. In addition to theoretical training, the Institute's connections with American firms enabled the student to obtain practical training.
Considering this panorama, Betancur proposed five fundamental points to conduct his proposal. In the first place, the creation of the entity, which he suggested calling the "Colombian Institute for Advanced Studies Abroad", should have sufficient economic resources to finance, select, control and place professionals seeking a specialisation or postgraduate degree in other countries. Second, the funds should be sufficient to conduct the organised training programme for a suitable number of years. Third, the Institute should have the cooperation and advice of both private universities and industry in the management and financing of the programme. Fourth, coordination would be established between the training programmes that students would receive abroad and the needs of the country with respect to specialists in government, industry, commerce and agriculture. Finally fifth, all kinds of favouritism in the allocation of aid would be eliminated, such that patronage would be left out of the selection and only the merits of the applicants would be considered 29

The creation of ICETEX
While Gabriel Betancur was studying his specialisation in the United States, the world was in the midst of World War II and Colombia was ending the presidential term of liberal Eduardo Santos and beginning the term of Alfonso López Pumarejo, who had already been president of the republic between 1934 and 1938. The international context substantially influenced the Colombian economic sphere, therefore, in his inaugural speech, President Alfonso López Pumarejo recognised a reality full of "innumerable and complex difficulties and upheavals" not as a "consequence of the acts of any Colombian and even less from the government", but whose consequences implied that "a hard time of crisis was beginning for the republic". 30 The 1946 elections were won by the political leader of the Conservative party, Mariano Ospina Pérez, for the 1946-1950 period. During his administration, the political violence that had been brewing for several decades worsened. This violence occurred in different regions of the country with different actors including "village chiefs, landowners, small landowners, administrators of farms of absentee landowners, day laborers gathered in gangs, merchants, transporters and, increasingly, the police". 31 On NaN Invalid Date NaN, Jorge Eliécer Gaitán, a prominent leader of the Liberal Party, was assassinated, which plunged the country into a maelstrom of violence that lasted more than 10 years.
Despite this political panorama, the country was experiencing an economic reactivation supported by "the price of coffee, the very considerable increases in agricultural and industrial production, the opportunity of international payments and the equilibrium of the balance of payments". 32 This was led by the three strongest economic associations: the National Federation of Coffee Growers, the National Federation of Merchants and the National Association of Industrialists. In view of the development discourse in vogue at that time, from the World Bank and within the framework of a loan request to finance it in the country, two international missions were conducted. The first, the Currie Mission (1949) which set out to examine "the critical state of the country's budget and fiscal policy, as well as the serious condition of the domestic transportation infrastructure, a prerequisite for assessing the nation's potential for economic development".- 33 The second, the Lebret Mission (1954) emphasised "the living standards of the population and the needs of the popular masses (the microanalysis), the potentialities and possibilities (the macroanalysis) and a special emphasis on the educational problem" 34 and whose final report was published under the title Study on the conditions of the development of Colombia (1958).
The economic transformations related to "industry and modern services" as points of "economic growth" 35 from the private sector and the State in its role as investor in the country's economy with the financing of works such as airports, roads, railways, hydroelectric plants and other infrastructure works, such as the expansion of the Barrancabermeja refinery, which brought with them the need to train specialised technicians and workers for the country. In addition, it is necessary to consider that during this period there was also a "transfer of labour from the countryside to the cities" 36 as an effect of partisan violence, aforementioned, and that certainly required their qualification for their proper absorption within the aforementioned economic dynamics.
To meet this need, in 1948, the Ministry of Education created a Department of Technical Education. However, the gaps in technology and modern science had not been filled, as the universities [retained] some of the key features of nineteenth-century education. Not only did they focus their activity on the same careers that, since colonisation, made up the university curriculum, but they also used the same descriptive and rote methods 37 -a reality inconsistent with the needs imposed by the discourse of development based on a technical-instructional rationality that would characterise the modernising trend throughout the Latin American panorama. In this support, the development and progress of the countries was only considered achievable through the implementation of a higher education system guided by the teaching of technique and technology. 38 The foregoing made it clear that strategies should be established to pave the way for the technical training that the country required, which is why universities were founded with an emphasis on this type of training, such as the Universidad Industrial de Santander or the Universidad Pedgógica y Tecnológica de Tunja, among others. But while the rising stakes on technical and technological training were established, it was clear that for the postgraduate level it was necessary to enable specialisation studies abroad.
Then, the political and economic context of the country required President Mariano Ospina Pérez to take containment measures, which is why he created the Public Credit and Economic Affairs Committee to promote the reconstruction of the country. There, he appointed Gabriel Betancur Mejía as General Secretary. Which would benefit the implementation of his project. As the committee sent a letter to the president when he finished his work, calling attention to "the importance of the creation of ICETEX for the General progress of the Republic". This letter implied political support for the project, as it was signed by 14 personalities from Colombia's political, academic and business world.
In the midst of a convulsive political context, in the 1949 election of the president of the republic, congress people and deputies were called, in an attempt to elect people with high citizen representation, and thus recompose the governance of the country. The political campaign was for the two traditional parties, intertwined in a violent dispute, "practically a civil war by electoral means" 39 in which not only the Liberal and Conservative political parties participated but also large media outlets such as El Siglo, El Tiempo and El Espectador, which replicated or were accused of doing so, the speeches of one or another ideological position. Similarly, the Catholic Church through the figure of Monsignor Builes (bishop of the municipality of Santa Rosas de Osos) "accused liberalism of being essentially anti-religious and of having morphed into communism", 40 thereby affecting the inter-subjectivity of a mostly Catholic society.
In different departments of the country, the presence of armed civilians increased, causing various violent actions and constraining the population. This contributed to the emergence of liberal guerrillas that militarily confronted the so-called "Pájaros" and "Chulavitas" of conservative ideology, who fought for local power in different parts of the country and whose actions produced not only the death of combatants from both sides but also hundreds of civilian victims. "The vast majority of fatalities left by the war were members of the civilian population: 215,005 civilians compared to 46,813 combatants". 41 This context and the Liberal Party's intention to take advantage of its majority in Congress to bring a lawsuit against President Ospina Pérez and remove him from office 42 led the president of the republic to declare a disturbed order, establishing a state of siege throughout the national territory. In his last days in office and specifically in his last council on 3 August , at 3:00 in the morning, Mariano Ospina Pérez approved the decree through which the Colombian Institute of Technical Specialisation Abroad-ICETEX was created. For this reason, Betancur himself assured that this fact had been possible with the aid of several friends, including President Ospina, 43 who had known about the project since 1946 when he travelled to the United States as president-elect and had stated that during his government he would make it a reality. 44 The draft decree was presented to President Mariano Ospina Pérez by Gabriel Betancur, who served as General Secretary of the Public Credit and Economic Affairs Commission, accompanied by a note in which he expressed his interest in the development of the country in all fields of human activity. The adoption of measures to facilitate the preparation, both technical and scientific, of Colombian personnel in university and scientific centers in countries with more advanced techniques than the national one, was urgently required. The recognition of the results that other nations concerned about preparing their youth had achieved, prompted them to recommend early consideration of such creation project: We believe that it is a patriotic duty to provide youth belonging to the less favoured economic classes with the facility to acquire adequate preparation so that the country can take advantage of both their intelligence and their desire to rationally cooperate in solving multiple national problems. 45 The committee assured that one of the country's problems was the decreasing concept of responsibility and work, but that the contact of young people with more advanced countries could objectively teach them that through study and daily work they could occupy distinctive positions in the solution of national problems. These men were thinking about the future of international politics in which they identified the axis of the life of each of the countries; thus, they expressed the need to help the youth to enter into relationships with other countries and in this way preserve Colombia's international prestige.
In addition to the above, and in the midst of a context of exacerbated violence, the members of the committee argued that the best way to transform the situation of hatred and political interests was to open new horizons to the new generations to acquire technical knowledge that would allow them to continue and improve the work done by previous generations. But in addition, this would only be achieved if the Institute could be created with an autonomous character, that is, "away from all political influence and technically directed". In their words, By highly recommending for the consideration of Your Excellency and the Council of Ministers the mentioned project, we are interpreting a generous desire of the Colombian youth to excel and to contribute effectively to the solution of one of the most important problems for the Republic. 46 The project ended up being approved with Decree 002586 of 3 August . Among its considerations, it was stated that the creation of the Institute was essential if Colombia were to benefit from the technical assistance programmes of the United Nations and other countries, as said programmes could be coordinated with the technical assistance needs of the country. Considering that the technical and scientific preparation of the country were important and useful factors in benefiting from national wealth, the way to continue development in the public and private fields should be through a complementary team of men especially prepared in techniques specific to this matter.
However, it was also clear that the most students belonging to the middle, peasant and working classes, although they finished their professional or technical studies with excellent results, did not have the opportunity to travel to other countries and continue their training or specialisation owing to the absolute lack of financial means. While it was considered the government's duty to help prepare the youth such that they could later better contribute to the Republic, and to provide public entities, universities, schools, cooperatives, among others, with the scientific and technical preparation of their personnel. 47 It is important to mention that ICETEX was created as an annex of the Ministry of National Education and as a decentralized agency with legal status. The Institute was to study the technical assistance offered by the specialized agencies of the United Nations, foreign governments and entities to coordinate the country's needs in this area. In addition, it was to be responsible for compiling statistical information on the professionals and technical workers that the country needed in all its activities, mainly in public administration, universities, industry, agriculture, cooperatives and so on. Based on this research, it would establish a priority list of the technicians most needed by the country.
Similarly, the Institute was in charge of determining the foreign universities or institutions that could be of more benefit to the nation, as well as selecting the candidates to acquire technical knowledge abroad, based exclusively on their intellectual capacities and personal merit. To those chosen, it would provide intensive courses in the languages necessary for their studies abroad. Through the counsellors and cultural attachés of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the studies and behaviour of those selected would be monitored, trying to maintain. 48 As for its structure, it would be in charge of a director appointed by the president of the republic for periods of four years. The director would be advised by a Consultative Board that it would include the Minister of Education, the Secretary of Technical and Economic Affairs of the Presidency of the Republic, a representative of public universities, a representative of private universities, a representative of employer associations, a representative of the workers and later a representative of the students who benefited from the loans. As for its structure, it would be headed by a director appointed by the President of the Republic for a four-year term. However, the country's problems related to violence and political instability delayed the launching of Icetex until the end of October 1952.
When starting the work, in 1952, Betancur toured different points of the national territory to interview government, educational, university, industrial leaders and so on. His observation led him to various conclusions about the country's social, political, economic and educational landscape. It found that the education system was disconnected from the reality of the country, that education was understood as an expense and not as an investment, that the predominant concept of development was linked to material or infrastructure works, that there was an obsolete organisation of the sector administration and a lack of educational administrators, that there was an imbalance between the regions owing to their educational status, that many leaders were not aware of the importance of education for the country's development, that the participation of the educational sector in public spending was insufficient, that a comprehensive education policy was needed to address the Colombian problem and that the education sector was being used for partisan politics. It was based on these conclusions that it established different priorities to generate more effective action by ICETEX. 49 The Institute, as a promoter of the technical and specialized preparation of students and professionals, was authorized to grant loans and scholarships to students from the population groups with less economic possibilities for professional training, to cover the expenses generated by their studies both in the country and abroad, "seeking an equitable distribution of loans among applicants from the middle, peasant and working classes "xlviii.
Reversing poverty in a country requires sustained effort for several decades, and investment in education is an important factor. "Educational transformations in Colombia only began to occur in the 1950s, when rapid and sustained economic growth and a significant change in the economic and demographic structure of the country occurred", 50 perhaps as an effect, among other factors, of the reversion of the Mares Concession to the Colombian State by the Tropical Oil Company in 1951, which gave rise to the Ecopetrol company, and the protection of the internal industry from the ban on the importation of various products, the result of pressure on the governments of the day (Gómez and Urdaneta) by the National Association of Industrialists (ANDI). 51 In addition to the industrialisation process that was advancing since the first decades of the twentieth century in the country, since by 1945 "there were in Colombia about 7,849 small-, medium-and large-sized industrial establishments, employing some 135,400 workers". 52 As part of this reality or in response to it, in the 1950s, during President Rojas Pinilla's government, "practical and technological popular education was strengthened (owing to his creation of created SENA -National Learning Service-), rural education with new agricultural technologies, and culture popular" 53 ; similarly, "the growth rates of higher education were very high, higher than those of primary and secondary education". 54 Evidently, the country needed more skilled labour resulting from technical and higher education processes, as other Western and Asian countries had done. However, the strong incidence of the Church and the government party favoured an education aimed at strengthening, in addition to the Catholic faith, the vocation to work: "It was proposed, then, that in addition to facilitating the country's incursion on the path of progress, the work ensured that the minds and efforts of young people were oriented to noble ends for society, away from partisan violence" 55 The panorama presented so far on the historical conditions of Colombia in the mid-twentieth century allows us to affirm that the ICETEX initiative responded to the need for qualified personnel and modernization of the country, understanding it as a means to counteract the intense panorama of violence, as well as the strong inequalities between different social groups at a time when education was seen as a privilege of a few.

Conclusion
In 2022, ICETEX celebrated 70 years of operation-7 decades in which it has strengthened the idea of educational credit in the country and in different regions of Latin America. It is an institution that most Colombians easily identify; it is known that people turn to the entity when they want to access higher education and do not have enough resources to do so. Therefore, either through personal experience or that of a family member, friend or acquaintance, Colombians have created an image, sometimes more precise and sometimes more diffuse, of this institution. This identification is an example of the importance of this institution for Colombian society, which began by providing "59 Colombians to pursue their technical and specialized studies abroad [and] today there are already 5 million Colombians who have had the support of ICETEX". 56 Well, as Foucault puts it, it is about understanding the historical value of the present, insofar as it is from this questions and problematisations begin, and because it is where the answers and the possibilities of understanding our reality are needed. 57 As has been observed, in Colombia, although the economy is doing well, it is not always reflected in a significant way in broad social sectors historically relegated from the equitable distribution of wealth. This reality has affected the possibilities of low-income people in access to higher education and even more so to postgraduate levels in the country or abroad.
As has been presented, this was also the situation for the founder of ICETEX, who, in 1942, found the financial support he needed from private companies to specialise in public administration abroad, whose thesis on the creation of an institution 'that would facilitate professionals and students to carry out undergraduate studies or specialisations abroad, through loans that would be paid in instalments by themselves-with reasonable interest rates As has been observed, in Colombia, although the economy is doing well, it is not always reflected in a significant way in broad social sectors historically relegated from the equitable distribution of wealth. This reality has affected the possibilities of low-income people to access higher education and postgraduate levels in the country or abroad. This was also the situation of the founder of ICETEX, who in 1942 found in private enterprise the financial support he needed to specialize in public administration abroad, whose thesis on the creation of an institution "that would facilitate professionals and students to carry out undergraduate studies or specializations abroad, through loans that would be paid in installments by themselves-with reasonable interest rates, the annual interest on the loans could not exceed 3% 58 -upon their return to Colombia'. 59 But this idea could only become a reality ten years later, and since then, it has fulfilled the objectives established in the decree that it, among its objectives was that of "granting equal opportunities to all young people, whatever the social class to which they belong and the region in which they live" because "one of the greatest dangers for a nation is, therefore, that there are regional, social or racial groups that have more access to education than others, which always causes dangerous social tensions". 60 After starting operations with 100,000 pesos since its launch in 1952, ICETEX has benefited millions of students, offering services that included loans for undergraduate, postgraduate and specialisation studies both within Colombia and abroad. Only two months after starting operations, the first two students were sent abroad. By the following year in 1953 there were 72 students abroad. Demonstrating the viability of the project from the first years of operation-a figure that today, after 70 years, has reached five million users. 61 Coverage in higher education has expanded in the last 70 years; it is currently 51.6%, according to data provided by the Ministry of Education Nacional lxi. Regarding the postgraduate level, specialization has the highest percentage (61.99%) while the doctorate has a minimum of 3.40%. 62 One reason that explains this situation refers to the high costs of tuition and sustenance of the entire educational process. Consequently, the financial support provided by ICETEX, whose contribution to the qualification of the country's human talent has been of vital importance in contributing to the closing of social gaps, since education is, in essence, a pivot for social mobility, continues to be fundamental. As the research on the impact of ICETEX developed by UCC and UDES in 2022 argues, access to higher education in the framework of progress in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals-ODS-make ICETEX as an institution and educational credit as an instrument, one of the main determinants to increase both access to higher education and equality in it, because as can be seen in the follow-up to the SDGs in Colombia, it is women who report a higher coverage rate (55.7%), compared to 48% of men. 63 In this sense and based on that stated above, it is also possible to affirm that the view has changed and that today, societies understand that education leads to civilising transformations that go beyond mere technical qualification. This idea has also been evolving within the institution which, although it arose to take care of the needs of the moment, has been transforming over time along with the Colombian society. Following this same line and to conclude, Betancur's words about the idea of transformation a couple of decades ago are transcribed here: Demonstrate what is perhaps commonplace today but was not then, that education was not an expense, but an investment, that access to education was not a gift, but a right and that education had the greater social, economic and cultural multiplier if the investments were properly made and that the comprehensive development of the country could only be achieved with a vigorous educational sector, integrated with the reality of the country, technically managed and properly financed. 64