Fundacion Antivirus para la Desercion

Help to reduce the levels of student desertion in Colombia

From this social reality, Fundacion Antivirus Para la Desercion (FATV) emerged four years ago. In the beginning, the project started working with the Systems Engineering program of the University of Antioquia. Nowadays, FATV has continued working with other institutions such as the National University of Colombia, Medellín headquarters, EAFIT, UNIAJC, the Network of HighSpeed Universities of the Valley (RUAV), and the Ministry of Technologies and Information, implementing accompanying strategies in some of them. Since this moment, support strategies have been structured according to the particularities of the population, both in the virtual and face-to-face modality, and artificial intelligence systems are being developed to take advantage of student data and learn from their successful strategies to replicate them in other institutions. Mission Statement: Antivirus for desertion is projected that became as a Foundation in 2022 as a pioneer program in student permanence in Colombia, which comprehensively accompanies social intervention models and data analytics processes of socio-pedagogical accompaniment for permanence, a reference to reducing inequality gaps in access and permanence in education in Colombia. Problem: Dropout from higher education is one of the main problems universities and technical and technological institutions face in Colombia. On average, half the people between 25 and 29 who were enrolled did not complete their studies (World Bank, 2017). According to the World Bank report, Colombia is the second country, after Bolivia, with one of the highest dropout rates in higher education in the region, where around 50% of students who start a university program drop out of the high education system. This percentage rises to approximately 53% for students beginning short-cycle programs, resulting in solid implications for diversity. (Ferreyra et al., 2017, p. 14). In addition to the above, the market context of the Fourth Industrial Revolution demands more and more competent professionals in the areas of knowledge associated with ICT. According to a study by Microsoft and LinkedIn, it is expected that by 2025 there will be more than ten million vacancies in the region, of which two million will be in Colombian companies (El Tiempo, 2021). Solution: Consequently, Antivirus for Dropout Foundation is configured as a program for student permanence, designed to reduce social gaps from education and technology, also promoting the access of more women to STEM careers, considering that according to the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation stated that only one in ten women studies in university and less than 15% choose a STEM career. (Castro, M. 2021). Since 2018, this organization has carried out an intervention process where it develops different strategies to strengthen and promote the permanence of students, achieving a 23% drop in dropouts in the Systems Engineering program between semesters 2017-2 and 2019 -1 (Antivirus for defection). In addition to the preceding, ATV has accompanied short training cycles in programming, in which the permanence of approximately 83% of the target population has been achieved, translating into a dropout of only 17%.