Colegio El Divino Niño in Santa Marta Wins the XI Contest on “From School Banking to Central Banking”

Colegio El Divino Niño in the city of Santa Marta was chosen, out of three finalists, as the winner of the XI “From School Banking to Central Banking” Contest for its essay entitled: How does Banco de la República’s monetary policy influence my decisions? Second place went to Colegio Villa Amalia Institución Educativa Distrital (Bogotá), and third place, to Instituto Educativo San Juan Bautista de La Salle (Manizales).

After listening to the presentations by the three front-runner teams, the jury, which was made up of four members of the Board of Directors of Banco de la República: Bibiana Taboada, Mauricio Villamizar, Jaime Jaramillo and Leonardo Villar, chose the Santa Marta team for its organization, research, application to everyday life, and the answers to their questions.

During the award ceremony, the Governor of Banco de la República, Leonardo Villar, confirmed this contest "helps to familiarize and give the public the tools to understand the objectives of monetary policy and, in that sense, the decisions made by the Board of Directors to combat the negative effects of high inflation on the well-being of the entire population."

The ceremony was attended by representatives of the five economics faculties at the universities associated with the contest: the Universidad del Rosario, the Universidad Javeriana, the Universidad del Valle, the Universidad Nacional de Colombia and the Universidad de los Andes. The Bank thanked them for their active participation in the first two phases of the contest.

Every two years, students and teachers from grades 10, 11 and 12 at all public and private schools in the country are invited to enroll in the contest. More than 54,000 students from all parts of the country have participated since it was first organized. This year 1,298 students took part, in addition to their teachers and families.

The contest awards economic incentives to the three winning teams and their schools. In addition, elements for access to knowledge are provided to these schools, and a scholarship to the Universidad del Rosario School of Economics is raffled among the winning teams.