page_title: Rubén González Cárdenas
section_title: Ministry of Public Education
hierarchical_section_title: Rubén González Cárdenas / Biography / Ministry of Public Education
caption_attribution_description: English: Oil painting bust, photocopy from original book picture. Español: Retrato al óleo, Fotocopia de fotografía de libro.
context_page_description: Rubén González Cárdenas was a lawyer with an intense early political life in his native State of Táchira between 1899 and 1908. He became Secretary General for the Government; also distinguished himself as House Representative for the National Congress; President for the Legislation Assembly; Minister of Public Instruction and Minister of Interior Relations.
context_section_description: The strategy developed during González Cárdenas stay as Minister represented a milestone in Venezuela's public education due to the great impact he had in this sector.
  The problems in education during the Gomez regime were the same that were being dragged from past administrations: lack of adequate infrastructure and graduate schools; low supply of work utensils and furniture, to such extent that "each student in general would have to bring their own chair or stool to school".  It is still a school house that "is limited in providing basic knowledge as a consequence of a routine teaching system boring and lacking interest to the students"  (Mudarra, 1978, p. 97)
  Rubén González Cárdenas understood that "something more than correcting vices in the application of the law and making compliance was needed in order to reach a true and complete organization of the system"(González, cit. por Fernández Heres, 1981, p. 943)
  He reorganized the Ministry under that line of thinking and instilled a spirit of order lacking in all other official institutions. He dignified the work of the Teacher, providing security and stability.  A small measure of this was that in six years of work (1922 - 1928) wages were increased 140% but demanding reciprocity he insisted professionalizing teaching activities that up till then were basic and rudimentary. This action was fundamental in pushing forward the Venezuelan magisterial.
  A new and successful path was forged that would define the Venezuelan educational system after the plan proposed by Felipe Guevara Rojas. The legislation reform pushed forward by Rubén González was in force for sixteen years until 1940. This reform revolved around the separation of the teaching and evaluation functions implemented in 1914 but "...with a better perspective and judicial criteria, Rubén González makes the Organic Law of Public Instruction declare expressly that the evaluation function that grants official titles and certificates pertains only to the State” 
  Rubén González Cárdenas was always a guardian of the patriotic interests and as Minister of Public Tuition focused to ennoble the interest of the Nation. He made mandatory the teaching of Venezuela History and Geography, as also Moral and Civic education. " Rubén González enacted a disposition by which the teaching of these programs was reserved for Venezuelan born nationals and other educational matters intimately related with the Republic and its institutions, against the destructive approach that Jesuit teachers were preaching." 
  Further on in 1924, during the legislative reform, Article No. 13 the Organic Law of Public Instruction states: “Academic courses related with the fundamental principles of the Venezuelan Nation can only be taught by Venezuelans.” 
  With the installment of legislation, a personal project of Rubén González Cárdenas, the anarchy of the so-called “liberal studies” were eliminated and clearly defined the concept of “a liberty of teaching that now would not permit a student practice that presented themselves for examination based on the subscription that any teacher, without certification or necessary elements could apply towards the Ministry of Public Tuition, that made possible lawyers, doctors, engineers, etc, graduating in less than two years” 
  Of his personal work stands out a particular decree that establishes two hundred (200) elementary schools and a few months later thirty (3) graduate schools in a country with a population of 3 million citizens. He grants the ULA (Universidad de Los Andes) with new buildings and labs, and through a decree reopens the school where he studied, today the Liceo Militar Jáuregui.
  Another episode as Minister of Public Instruction that marked Rubén González Cárdenas unbreakable character happened in 1924, the Secretary General of the Presidency called him to office and presented a letter where Archbishop Felipe Rincón presses the government to “include a Christian doctrine as one of the required courses in elementary, primary and high school, and to exempt from it those children whose parents or gua
caption: Oil Painting by Marcos Bontá, Universidad de Los Andes, Mérida, Venezuela
exif: {"Image Make": "Agfa", "Image Model": "SnapScan e40", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "300", "Image YResolution": "300", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "VueScan 9 x32 (9.2.04)", "Image ExifOffset": "170", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2013:06:09 19:27:44", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "2439", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2256"}