What Is Inter-cultural Bilingual Education in Peru

There are 26,000 intercultural bilingual schools in Peru, accounting for 32% of the country’s educational institutions. What are they, how does the government support them, why are they the predominant educational institutions in some parts of Peru while completely absent in others…?

What is Inter-cultural Bilingual Education?

Characteristics of the model. The model is implemented in two ways:

  • IBE for cultural and linguistic affirmation—for communities where the mother tongue is still
    alive and actively used.
  • ICBE for cultural and linguistic revitalization — for communities where the mother tongue is endangered or has already fallen into passive use.
    The model is aimed at students from the indigenous population enrolled in the regular education system at the elementary, middle, and high school levels. It is implemented in public and private schools, following the general education curriculum with the addition of mother tongue classes. A school may obtain IBU status after applying for it and provided there are students for whom the mother tongue or the language spoken in their families is not Spanish. An important feature is that it is not mandatory for the children to be native speakers of the language; they may no longer speak it, but if it is the family’s language, the school can obtain IBU status. However, a condition is that the school must have qualified bilingual teachers. This does not provide the school with additional funding, and the cost of these teachers must come from the general budget, often at the expense of another teacher. Naturally, this creates competition among schools and is one of the reasons why in large cities—where, no matter how large the number of migrants from the Andes and the Amazon may be, they represent a small percentage of the population—there are also only a small number of bilingual schools. For example, in Lima, there is only one. Currently, there are 26,397 elementary, middle, and high schools operating in the country, serving 1,238,923 students across Peru’s 24 regions. A special directorate within the Ministry of Education is responsible for them. Sociocultural and linguistic scenarios. Five scenarios have been identified, depending on the level of proficiency in the mother tongue and the official language (in this case, Spanish).
  •  Scenario 1 — Students understand and speak their mother tongue fluently. Few of them speak Spanish.
  •  Scenario 2 — Students understand and speak both languages (their mother tongue and Spanish), with the local language predominating in communication.
  •  Scenario 3 — Students speak Spanish fluently and have limited understanding of the local/mother tongue, which is used primarily by older members of the community. A very small proportion of young people speak the language. A significant proportion are ashamed to speak the language, and this process is often accompanied by assimilation and a loss of identity.
  •  Scenario 4 — Students speak exclusively Spanish and know only a few phrases in the local language. The local language is no longer used in the community, but some cultural practices have been preserved.
  • Scenario 5 — Students come from different indigenous groups, speak different local languages, and have varying levels of bilingualism (multilingual context).

Educational model

The pedagogical model includes four key elements

  • Development of an intercultural curriculum. This covers topics such as acknowledging personal and collective identity, developing critical thinking to overcome inequalities and discrimination, incorporating information about the culture and customs of indigenous peoples into the curriculum, and promoting tolerance through learning about the culture and traditions of various indigenous peoples
  • Development of bilingual education: both the acquisition of the mother tongue and the use of the mother tongue to improve the acquisition of the official language and to achieve higher educational outcomes
  • Different uses of language according to the specific context and various learning scenarios: the use of mother tongues to teach core subjects, the use of Spanish as a second foreign language, or the use of the local language as a second foreign language, the connection between the two, and their use to enhance language competencies. Both languages are used as teaching tools. In Scenarios 1 and 2, in the early grades, the local language is the primary teaching tool, and Spanish is introduced as a second language using a specialized methodology, after which its role is gradually expanded. In Scenarios 3, 4, and 5, Spanish is the primary language of instruction, while the local language is developed as a second language subject using foreign language teaching methodology, with gradual integration into other subjects. The connection between school, family, and community is of paramount importance.
  • Promoting dialogue between different cultures as the foundation for building intercultural pedagogy. In the identity-affirmation model, the community’s knowledge and practices are deepened; in the cultural revitalization model, traditional cultural values are reintroduced and placed on a contemporary foundation. Both approaches aim to overcome discrimination. Assessment of knowledge: It follows current educational regulations while taking into account students’ level of bilingualism and their individual learning styles.

The model for implementing BIL has been developed in great detail in Peru, taking into account the diverse context, language proficiency scenarios, school management structure, assessment, and methodological support. Unfortunately, not everything is implemented in an ideal manner due to the challenges the Peruvian education system still faces, namely the lack of sufficiently qualified teachers, the lack of intercultural schools in Lima and major cities, and the need to improve access to education for all children.

For more information, see here:

Интер-културното образование отвъд граници: уроци от Перу (част 1)

Презентация за интер-културните билингвални училища на Министерство на образованието – Перу