Overview of OH Graduate Education in Colombia

Several profiles have been conducted to evaluate education and training programs in Colombia. El Bosque University has led the organization of three national and international meeting on education and training in OH in the country and abroad. Based on these experiences, this presentation will make an overview of those events, graduate competencies and skills profiles, and the diversity of graduates that struggle in the OH service market. A review of the evolution of the graduate programs from 1984 to 2011 was done to determine regulation evolvement of superior education, governing bodies, quantity and qualified registry of OH Graduate programs, and registry and certification of OH specialists during these years.  The legal opening of education programs and academic independency led to an overwhelming growth of OH Graduate and technical programs. All sorts of modalities, presentations, schedules and titles are offered within the 94 programs available. The core problem is that graduates lack competencies and skills, leading to a mediocre OH workforce. Despite governing bodies have developed a qualified registry of graduate programs, they still do not achieve to detect these deficiencies. Events yield important conclusions and recommendations. Education and training programs in Colombia grew in a geometrical way because of market trends and not because of educational needs. They are: 1) Strengthening governmental and regulating bodies and quality assurance programs. 2) Enhancing International training by distance education. 3) Reinforcing continuous education. 4) Networking at national and international level for education and research. 5) Concerting research priorities to tackle prior problems. 6) Registering the evidence and disseminating information about results.