The Integrated Citizen Service System, We are with you! It is a citizen service strategy that brings the community closer to the educational services offer in Bogotá easy, without intermediary, travels and rows. We are convinced that by facilitating the access to education trust is generated, the sector is transformed and students and parents’ quality of life is improved. This was achieved through the integration of four aspects: service channels physical and technological infrastructures were modernized, virtualization of educational procedures and services, decentralization of support towards educational establishments and personal leadership and digital update of public servants.

The results of this strategy are the elimination of rows to access to services, since citizens can schedule an appointment through the website at any school or user support center and from any device with internet; know in real time the status of requirements; request more than 50 procedures and online services; trained more than 2.000 public servants in digital tools and 100.000 digitally literate families.

This impacts citizens in terms of dignifying access to fundamental rights such as education, contributing to its quality, to transparency in the access of information and services in the sector, to reduction of the risk of corruption by not having intermediaries in the processes, to reduction of fiscal and natural resources by technical and technologically rationalizing the portfolio of services and to the government commitment to advance in the digital literacy of an increasingly aware citizens of their rights.

https://www.educacionbogota.edu.co/portal_institucional/servicio-ciudadania2

• Bogotá, Colombia

• Youth
• Older persons
• Women
• Indigenous and nomadic peoples
• People with disabilities
• The unemployed
• The poor
• Migrants
• Refugees and internally displaced people
• Remote and rural communities
• Comunidad educativa (Padres y madres de familia, maestros, niños, niñas y adolescentes)

For Bogota’s Secretary of Education (SED), the cost-benefit ratio of this initiative has exceeded expectations initially raised, since the investment is minimal compared to the results obtained, as they show citizen acceptance, trust and restored governance towards the sector that manage an essential and susceptible public service as is education, making this initiative replicable in other countries or territorial entities, appropriating technological tools such as the Document Management Integrated System (SIGA), which is a platform developed through free software by Mayor’s Office of Bogotá and can be managed by entities through an administrative agreement or by the conditions defined for source code transfer. The virtual form for request, query and respond to requirements is a free software development of SED and can be managed from an administrative agreement. Finally, the appointment scheduling module is available in the market.

According to Latinbarómetro (2017) in Bolivia, completing a governmental procedure takes more than 11 hours and in Colombia 7.4 hours. If this is the generalized reality of the region, the data of education sector in Latin America are still unexplored and no other initiative has been developed for this sector, which allows its replication in the region. In Colombia, there are approximately 8,200 public schools where, for example, the registration process at national level remains one of the most delayed, so it brings improvement opportunities. Today, there are still cases such as “payments for school quotas” in many cities, which consist in paying intermediaries to manage procedures before entities attached to education sector, among other procedures and services that can be improve with the development of this model allowing integrate and leverage of its potential to simplify of procedures and services to close quality and equal access gaps and dignify citizen service in the education sector.

The Resolution 1715/2015, the Institutional Policy of Citizen Service was adopted by SED, setting the legal bases for its implementation. In 2016, through the Development Plan “Bogotá better for everyone” 2016 – 2020, the transparent, efficient and willing public management action line is defined to offer a better service to the citizen, and is created the investment project “Institutional Modernization” with resources for the citizen service management in the SED.
By Resolution No. 002/2018 “the Process Map of the SED is modified, the characterizations of its processes are adopted and the other provisions are dictated”, it was possible to include the “Integrated Citizen Service” as a “Missionary Process” and, therefore, transversal to the entire SED. This guarantees not only its sustainability over time, but also the appropriation of resources. Likewise, as a result of this restructuring, the documentation standardization was carried out within the entity’s management system. With this, the necessary normative structure was consolidated in a Colombian public entity for its sustainability.
On the other hand, technical sustainability was strengthened as the impacts are integrated into 3 components:
Positive economic impact: in reducing the tax burden due to the efficiencies in the management of institutional correspondence by being a web platform that integrates the three administrative levels (central, local and institutional level), more than 2,000 people connected and without having to move to file their requirements.
Positive social impact: more free time and fewer expenses for the educational community when it does not have to travel and make long lines to access educational services, or pay intermediaries.
Environmental impact: this is one of the most effective bets in the “zero paper” Policy and has an impact on the reduction of the carbon footprint as the displacements of both parents to schools, as well as officials who no longer have to travel to request requirements at the administrative levels.

The Project promotes transparency and institutional trust for the citizens through their freedom in the selection of the mechanism of access to the educational services of the District with multiple channels for attention; promotes that the officials act impartially guaranteeing the right to equality in the assumption of government benefits; and promotes the solidarity in the government and citizens interaction and the respect on the information management that allows the improvement in the planning of the entity’s services. The foregoing led to the educational community actively and collectively participation with the entity in the construction and monitoring of policies, plan, programs and projects focused on citizens and their needs, through the complaint and solutions system called “Bogotá listens to you”, in which they can present their request, complaints, claims and observations, performing social control and promoting solutions to the problems that involve everyone and generating an open dialogue and constant feedback with the public administration. On the other hand, the creation of non-face-to-face channels, like the virtual and telephonic, have allowed to promote respect for nature, since the implementation of technological tools have reduced the environmental impacts on the operation of the system, reducing the use of paper, and the carbon footprint by reducing the unnecessary displacements of users to administrative points.