This book shows how education had a transforming, modernizing effect on the Colombian reality, from its formation as a nation-state to the present day. Two approaches are considered: first, education systems in relation to society and the economy and, second, pedagogical conceptions that historically contributed to thestructure and construction of a national identity. In this way, those pedagogical conceptions and their most influential characteristics in the development of the Colombian State between the period of independence and republican reforms stand out, until the personalist conception of education in the 1991 constitution. Education is also thought of prospectively and its successes and failures are recognized, after two hundred years of the country’s history.