Difficulties and Challenges in the Integrationof Venezuelan Students in Colombia from theirTeachers’ Voice

Resistance to technological precariousness in Colombian rural schools during the Covid-19 shutdown

Abstract

The humanitarian crisis in Venezuela has caused the migration of millions of people
towards several countries, a situation that has impacted Colombia in a special way since this is the
bordering country with the greatest mobility. Among the immigrant population there is a wide portion
of boys, girls, and adolescents representing a challenge to the government, to the educational
establishments, and to the coexistence between Colombian and Venezuelan students in schools.
This paper is focused on the identification, as perceived by teachers, of the educational conditions
that allow or hinder the Venezuelan students to integrate into the Colombian educational system.
The methodology was based on conducting mixed focus groups including teachers from educational
institutions in Cúcuta and Bogotá, two Colombian cities involving a high concentration of migrant
population. Among the most important conclusions achieved there is the identification of a series of
factors that, on one hand, facilitate a proper acceptance at educational institutions but, on the other
hand, there are difficulties related to the lack of tools that permit to face circumstances potentially
generating conflictive situations. Some of such circumstances are xenophobe, strain situations
between students, the need of establishing social links beyond the classroom, the lack of teaching
tools and curricular innovations, the scarcity of institutional policies, and the existence of situations
of vulnerability or risks affecting Venezuelan students.