A few years ago, as part of a joint working session in the Quality National Commission for Higher Education in Education Ministry in Colombia, Priest Gerardo Remolina, ex Rector of Javeriana University presented his reflections about QUALITY AND RELEVANCE OF EDUCATION FROM A HUMAN PERSPECTIVE. His speech seemed very timely and relevant for our University; and that is why I want to review some of its most important aspects, in contributing to the permanent reflection and search for those elements that allow us to carry out our mission: "To educate professionals with solid foundations, able to carry out, independently, competent and ethical, different processes of technological adaptation, academic production, and original research in both industry and academia to contribute to their personal and family development and the society in general".

"Talk about education is to speak of human being itself and his integrity. It would be worthless to have an education that forms excellent scientists and technicians without a support and consistency truly human". In Colombia has been insisting on technical and technological training as an essential and important for the country. However, linked to this insistence, there is a danger of falling into the pragmatic immediacy that favors short-term results in the field of technological innovation, and neglects a vision that has as its goal the human formation. Priest Remolina said that humans are intend humanization of robots on one side, and robotizing of humans for other. This means, to make robots endowed with artificial intelligence, feelings, emotions and even the ability to make responsible (ethical) decisions; and paradoxically, make human beings more and more functional and effective robots, that, like mechanical or electronic devices, can make highly efficient operations, economically productive and competitive for a world whose ideal is forged from material and utilitarian expectations; where the truly human has been silenced or been placed regardless of our intentions.

This problem of the education concept is not exclusive to developing countries; also occurs in developed countries like the United States or the European Union countries, determined by the competitiveness and innovation, and guided, these last ones, by the famous "Bologna Letter" by which the Ministers of Education constituted "the Europe of knowledge". This, according Reiser, transformed the European university in a "Learning factory", altering in a nefarious way its essence. The new system is about: "market strategies", "capacity for competitiveness", "students and teachers recruitment procedures" (not their vocation), "universities management", "creating market spaces based on knowledge", "efficiency", "synergies" and "potential for innovation and social and economic development". Nobody talks about the spirit that forms with education. Nobody talks about that knowledge and wisdom are values that the mankind seeks and loves itself. According to Professor Reiser "this document (Bologna Letter), manifests a sad spirit of materialism and utilitarianism".

It is necessary to be aware of the seriousness of what is happening and correct the course, often implicit, that has been traced. The answer to the question about the contributions of science, the arts and humanities for an education with quality and relevance for all, it seems obvious: it is not to oppose or exclude sciences or disciplines, but to integrate them. Quality education must advocate for an authentic integral human formation in the sciences, arts and humanities contributions are not simple, but constituent elements. To this objective contribute not only science, but also the arts and all disciplines, especially the humanities and social sciences; and specifically ethics, pedagogy, psychology, anthropology, and philosophy. Comprehensive training should not focus on the sciences or disciplines, but on the individual, on the capacities and the fundamental structures of the human being. It is not integration from outside but inside out; the core of integration cannot be other than the person himself.

Reflect on education and its quality, requires each epoch be questioned critically about the human being model, society and culture to perform, to contrast with the explicit or implicit model or the absence of model, which actually is implemented. That requires serious ethical and moral reflection as absolutely essential. What is the human model which aims to train our Colombian society? And, how it is justified or based? This makes clear that who helps the educational process (teacher or institution) should have very clear and defined its anthropological model, its ethical principles, values and ideals. The integral training involves a conception of man as a whole: implies an anthropological and a worldview. But, who holds the ultimate responsibility for integral training? Ultimately, on the subject of the educational process itself, in our case, about the student. It is also clear that educational institutions cannot go beyond guiding and stimulating the process, of opening horizons and possibilities and offer aid.

But the above raises the question anyway for the contents of the integral training. In this sense, the integral formation cannot be confused with articulation of certain subjects in a curriculum. Although today is distinguished more clearly what is a curriculum and what is a studies plan, very often for us engineers, this difference is not clear. The integral formation can rest on a curriculum, but not in studies plan, even in a humanistic studies plan. The issue is not to combine in a complementary way "humanistic subjects" with the characteristics courses of a profession, nor to give it some humanist flavor with technical training.