Colombia: Key socioeconomic indicators

The National Training Service, created in 1957 as a result of the joint initiative of organised workers, entrepreneurs, Catholic Church and the ILO. It is a national public entity with legal status, own patrimony with administrative autonomy and ascribed to the Labour and Social Security Ministry of Colombia. In February 9th 1994 law 119 restructures the SENA, derogates decree 2149 of 1992 and dictates new dispositions.

The SENA invests in the social and technical development of the Colombian workers. It offers and executes integral vocational training for the integration of people to productive activities that contribute to the economic, social and technical development of the country.

Besides the integral vocational training imparted in its Training Centres, it offers the following services:

- Continuous training of human resources linked to enterprises

• Information, orientation and training for the job
• Support to the enterprise development
• Technological services to the productive sector
• Support to innovative projects, technological development and competitiveness.

In the SENA this process is developed mainly by long and short courses which have curricula defined by the needs and perspectives of the productive sectors and social demand. The courses are structured based on different technological levels and enterprise development that range from formal employment to independent work.

The training that the institution offers leads to the operational and instrumental mastery of a given occupation, the appropriation of the technical and technological knowledge that the occupation requires and the capability to adapt to changes. The person trained in this way is able of integrating technologies, move in the occupational structure, creatively pose and solve problems and efficiently know how to perform tasks.

SENA´s politics towards innovation, competitiveness and productive technological development constitutes an answer to the productive sector and the country that reclaim an effective contribution and in concordance with the mission of the institution a solution to the problems that affect productivity and competitiveness of the organisations that generate employment and wealth.

This support is offered by the execution of joint projects with the productive sector, research and academic development as well as effective use of the technical, human and financial resources the entity has. It does so paying attention to the criteria of relevance, quality, opportunity, targeting and sectorial impact with direct and tangible benefits for the enterprises.

In the framework of the Innovation, Competitiveness and Technological Productive Development five strategies have been developed through national Programmes directed to support:

The national system of innovation

• The enterprise competitiveness and productivity

• The rural sector

• The national system of normalization, certification and metrology

• The continuous vocational training

Curriculum Development with an ICT component. In: Workshop: Information and Communication Technologies
in National and Regional Training Systems. Kingston, Jamaica, February 12 - 15, 2008

Productivity, entrepreneurship and employment. In: Technical Meeting: The role of vocational training in productivity, employment and development in Latin America and the Caribbean. Salvador, Bahia (Brasil), September, 2007

SENA's new support to the setting up of businesses: Technology to the service of business ideas

SENA. Support to enterprise and worker competitiveness; Four new studies on Colombian economic sectors are launched

An enterprising fair to show. Agrosena 2006

399 workers from El Cerrejón will be receiving the Labour Competency Certificate

Alliance between SENA and Compartel
21,000 places for virtual training in Colombian municipalities

SENA receives certification from ICONTEC in Antioquia

Setting up an Environmental Management Working Group. A good atmosphere for Environmental issues

SEBRAE Colombia Challenge 2006

SENA celebrated its 49 years of existence

The Minister of the Interior and of Justice and SENA's Director sign an Agreement for the Reinserted

SENA surpassed its 2 million-student goal
December 2003

Strategic Plan 2002-2006

"SENA: A Knowledge Organisation"

- SENA and the technological development p. 36

- Local management of vocational training in Colombia
p. 63

in

Cinterfor/ILO: Modernization in Vocational Education and Training in the Latin American and the Caribbean Region. Montevideo, 2001.