IPP161

                                   Indigenous Peoples Report
                             BOLIVIA: Secondary Education Project


Indigenous Peoples (OD 4.20). In accordance with the Indigenous Peoples Policy, the entire
project is classified as an Indigenous Peoples Development Plan. The following section presents
a summary of the legal framework and key actions conducted in order to guarantee that the
indigenous communities benefit from the project.

Before the plan is presented, it is worth mentioning that the Education Reform Law of 1994,
established the provision of an Intercultural Bilingual Education system in Bolivia.
Consequently, due to the legal mandate, basic and secondary education programs designed and
implemented by the Ministry of Education have included an IBE conceptual framework.

Background Information and Legal Framework


Constitutional framework.        In 1994, Bolivia's Constitution was modified to officially
acknowledge the society's multi-ethnic, multi-cultural and multi-linguistic character.     This
transcendental change, framed in the search for more democratic relationships between the
different groups, posed a challenge to the national education system with the need for complex
transformations, new guidelines, and different aims than those of a traditionally elitist and
homogenizing education.

Educational framework. Bolivia's current legal framework in education is possibly one of the
most important achievements in the last decades. After the 1955 Education Code, no substantial
changes were made until the nineties. This code aimed to extend the systems' coverage to the
rural areas and to integrate the indigenous population within the concept of the Bolivian
"National State."     Rural education was predominantly technical and aimed to convert the
indigenous people into "campesinos" (peasants), an economic concept that ignores ethnic and
cultural differences. Reading, writing and arithmetic were also important and everything was
taught only in Spanish. Stated simply, the positive side of these changes was that an ample part
of the population gained access to education which was compulsory in the then called "basic"
level, years 1 to 5 (40% more indigenous people entered the system)(Contreras 1999, cited in
López 2004). The negative side was that the quality of education and its goals did not respect
the indigenous peoples needs and different characteristics (Ipiña 1996, in López 2004).
Diversity was seen as a "problem" that needed to be overcome through "melting pot" schools
where Euro-centric postures, language, contents, values, etc., were dominant.

The Education Reform Law (LRE) of 1994 substantially reflects the discussions held during the
eighties among indigenous organizations, academics, the workers' union (COB), the rural
teachers' confederation (CONMERB), and among many others who criticized the 1955
Education Code and its discriminatory stance, and demanded profound changes.              Their
proposals, experiences and research, alongside the international advances in education, were
taken into account for the new legal framework which established Interculturality and Social
Participation as its pivots (ME 2002b; Albó and Anaya 2003).

The LRE's first article states that: "Bolivian education is intercultural and bilingual, because it
acknowledges the country's sociocultural heterogeneity in a climate of respect between all
Bolivians, men and women."

Article 2 establishes the goals of Bolivian education: "To promote the practice of universally
recognized human values and ethic norms as well as those that are proper of our cultures,
furthering responsibility in personal decisions, the development of critical thinking, the respect
for human rights (...) as a basis for (...) a disposition towards democratic life, and strengthening
the social conscience of being a person and belonging to a collectivity...To strengthen the
national identity, exalting the historical and cultural values of the Bolivian Nation in its
enormous and diverse multicultural and multiregional richness."

In its third article, it establishes the objectives of the education system: (i) "To improve the
education's quality and efficiency by making it pertinent to the community's needs and by
extending its coverage (...) guaranteeing equality of rights for men and women," and (ii)
"Construct an intercultural and participative education system that allows the access of all
Bolivians to an education, without any sort of discrimination."

The conceptual options that underlie the law are linked to cultural re-valuing and development,
and an education aimed to construct democratic relationships based on respect, complementation
and cooperation among those who are different.

The LRE organizes the education system into four structures: Popular Participation, Curriculum
Organization, Curriculum and Technical Services Management, and Resource Management.
Compulsory education was extended to the "primary" level, years 1 to 8. Among the specific
dispositions for these structures, some are directly functional to the IBE framework, mainly the
creation of social participation schemes, where the most important have been the "Consejos
Educativos de Pueblos Originarios," known as CEPOs (Indigenous Peoples Education Councils:
Aymara, Quechua, Guaraní, Amazon multiethnic and others); the construction of a flexible and
open curriculum, guided by an intercultural approach, which establishes two language
modalities: monolingual, "in Spanish with the introduction of a national indigenous language,"
and bilingual, "in a national indigenous language as the first language and Spanish as the
second" (Art. 9), and consequently teacher training will respond to these; the creation of school
networks (rural "nuclei" and urban "networks"); and the unification of urban and rural education.

Educational decentralization is another important aspect of the reform. Not only the creation of
the social participation schemes and institutions (school boards, nuclei boards, CEPOs, etc.) are a
part of this, but also the municipal governments that are responsible for the provision and
maintenance of schools' infrastructure. The resources for this, among other sources, come from
the implementation of the Popular Participation law which distributes the country's tax revenues
among the municipalities.

The LRE challenged the traditional system profoundly. It opened the schools' doors to the
community; it explicitly sought to overcome the past division of two types of education, one for
the indigenous rural people and another for the (supposedly) non-indigenous urban; it proposed a
core curriculum to be diversified according to the local needs; it included the municipal

governments in the implementation of educational changes. The IBE guidelines were present in
both the curricular and the institutional framework of the educational policy.

Other legal instruments created to strengthen the IBE approach were:

    · 1999: Administrative Resolution 038/99 determined the bilingual modality was to be
        applied in districts where the indigenous language is dominant.

    · 2000: Supreme Decree 25894 recognized 33 indigenous languages as official.

    · 1999: Ministerial Resolution 436/99 acknowledged the graduates of the "Bachillerato
        Humanístico con mención en Pedagogía" (BHP) program1 as teachers for the primary
        level in the bilingual modality.

    · 2003: Ministerial Resolution 238/03 determined the official recognition of the "Bilingual
        teacher for primary education" diploma to be extended by IBE teacher training institutes.

    · 2004: Ministerial Resolution 014/04 created the Intercultural Bilingual Education
        Directorate (IBED) whose function is to define policies for the implementation of IBE
        and ensure its completion, and to supervise and monitor the application of IBE in
        classrooms.

According to the Director of the IBED, this office was created due to the weaknesses observed in
the implementation process of the IBE approach which was limited to folkloric practices and
empty discourse. The IBED intends to strengthen IBE implementation both within the Ministry
of Education, in all areas linked to IBE, and in sectors outside it (Interview Pari, 2004).

The proposed secondary education project builds on Bolivia's experience with the Education
Reform Program (ERP), where Intercultural Bilingual Education (IBE) and community
participation have been essential elements of the transformation, especially in schools with an
indigenous population.

The policy and strategy for transformation of secondary education has also benefited from the
creation, under the ERP, of: (i) the Intercultural Bilingual Education Directorate whose function
is to define policies for the implementation of IBE and ensure its completion, and to supervise
and monitor the application of IBE in classrooms; (ii) the "Consejos Educativos de Pueblos
Originarios," known as CEPOs (Indigenous Peoples Education Councils: Aymara, Quechua,
Guaraní, Amazon multiethnic and others) which have been in charge of developing IBE policies
and ensuring their implementation; and (iii) the National Education Council (CONED) chaired
by the Minister of Education and composed of representatives from social, indigenous, teacher,
civic, academic, governmental, non governmental, church and academic organizations.




1This program exists in eight secondary schools in highly indigenous districts where secondary students receive basic
pedagogical training and guidelines to apply the IBE approach.

As a result of the ERP, important achievements in continuing to strengthen IBE in secondary
education include, among others: (i) the construction of a flexible and open curriculum, guided
by an intercultural approach, which established two language modalities: monolingual, "in
Spanish with the introduction of a national indigenous language," and bilingual, "in a national
indigenous language as the first language and Spanish as the second;" (ii) the conversion of the
Institutos Normales Superiores (INS) (eight in the Andean region and one in the Guaraní region)
into half IBE INS (Intercultural Bilingual Education INS) and half into monolingual. A project
for two more IBE INS for the Amazon region is in process; (iii) the official recognition of the
"Bilingual teacher for primary education" diploma was extended by IBE teacher training
institutes; (iv) the creation of school networks (rural "nuclei" and urban "networks"); and (v) the
unification of urban and rural education.

Trends

For the proposed project, the indigenous peoples plan at the Ministry of Education is taking into
consideration the recent trends identified by several studies, research, seminars and workshops
carried out during project preparation. The most important trends are summarized below:

Cultural identity, languages and migration. According to the 2001 census, 62% of Bolivia's
adult population identifies itself with one of the 35 indigenous ethnic groups of the country,
specifically: 31% with the Quechua, 25% with the Aymara, and 6% with the Guaraní or another
indigenous group. No other Latin American country has such a high proportion of indigenous
people, except Guatemala, where estimates indicate that between 45-50% of the population is
indigenous.2

Population. For a current population of 8.2 million, in the last 50 years, the Bolivia's indigenous
population has grown from 1.7 million people in 1992 to 3.9 million in 2001. Among young
people, the age group which has shown most growth is precisely that which corresponds to the
potential students at the secondary level: at present 729,000 Bolivians are 14-17 years old, this is
30% more than in 1992 (compared to 16% more 0-3 year olds; 16% more 4-5 year olds; and 24%
more 6-13 year olds) (ME 2004a).

Poverty and illiteracy. The highest levels of poverty are still concentrated in rural areas, where
87% of the population older than 15 identifies themselves as indigenous, and where 91% are
poor and 52% are extremely poor. When comparing the country's departments, poverty also
increases according to indigenous population: in Potosí and Chuquisaca, both with a 75-85%
indigenous adult population, 70-80% are poor and close to half of these live in extreme poverty
(INE 2001; INE-UDAPE 2001; ME 2004a).

Languages. The 2001 census asked what language a person "learned to speak" and, based on
this criteria, established that the first language of the population 4 years and older was: Quechua
21%, Aymara 14%, Spanish 63%, 0.6% Guaraní, and 1% for other indigenous languages. This
means that about 37% have an indigenous language as their "mother tongue." Given that this
data excludes about 800,000 children under 4 years of age, a group which is proportionally

2Other countries in the region show lower proportions: around 35% in Peru and Ecuador, 9-10% in Mexico, and less than 3% in
Chile, Argentina, Brazil and Colombia (Nucinkis 2005).

higher in rural areas than in urban areas (Population age pyramids, INE 2001), that percentage is
higher.

López (2004) states that about 60% of the population speaks an indigenous language: 48% are
bilingual (indigenous language and Spanish) and 12% monolingual in the indigenous language.
This leaves 40% that only speak Spanish. This is similar to the data presented by Albó in 1999,
based on the 1992 census, that found that 42% only spoke Spanish, 11% only spoke an
indigenous language and 46% were bilingual. Both sources agree with the last census which
indicates that of the total population 47% speaks only Spanish and 53% is either bilingual,
monolingual in an indigenous language, or speaks a foreign language (less than 1%). In urban
areas, 97.5% speak Spanish (as monolinguals or bilinguals), while in rural areas 30% do not
speak Spanish (ME 2004a).

Distribution. Indigenous people are distributed throughout the entire country, in traditional rural
areas and in urban cities, and are dedicated to all sorts of work, from subsistence farming and
hunting, and small scale entrepreneurship, all the way to high posts in the Executive or the
Legislative Palace where, since 2002, they have had representatives through two political parties
that received a large number of votes. Though there are some more homogeneous geographical
concentrations, such as that of the Quechuas in certain regions in Potosí or the Urus close to the
Titicaca and Poopó lakes, there is mainly dispersion of the indigenous people, as occurs with the
Aymaras and Quechuas who are mostly in the West, but also live in concentrated areas in
different eastern cities such as Tarija and Santa Cruz.

Students. Between 1997 and 2002, the number of students in the bilingual modality increased
by 157%, this is from 75,896 to 192,238 students, which represent 11% of the almost 1.7 million
enrolled in the primary level and 26% of the students enrolled in rural areas. In comparison with
the coverage of the Experimental Bilingual Education Project (EBEP) which preceded the
Reform Law and provided services to 8,300 students in 1994 (from grades 1-5 in 114 schools),
the increase has been enormous: 1,756%, which shows the magnitude of the impulse given to
this modality through the Reform Program. However, in comparison with the socio linguistic
characteristics of the population, this 11% of primary students is still low. The modality has not
been extended to the initial and secondary levels.

Teachers. The number of teachers has tripled; from 2,905 teachers in 1997, to 9,028 registered
in primary bilingual schools in 2002; this is 12.5% of all primary teachers. However, of these,
only 84% speak an indigenous language, meaning the rest have a serious handicap to work in
such schools. And 23% of these are in the category of "interinos," which means they have no
formal or specific training for teaching in primary schools.

Learning achievements. The results in standardized Language and Mathematics tests, applied in
the indigenous language in a sample of monolingual (only Spanish) and bilingual (with Aymara
and Quechua) rural schools, by Bolivia's Quality Measurement System (SIMECAL) in 1997,
showed that although the differences were not significant, many indigenous students had
relatively better achievements in both tests when they were in IBE schools than when they were
in Spanish schools.

The Consultation Process for Improving Secondary Education (Social Assessment)

The new operation proposal is based on a wide consultation process at the departmental, regional
and national levels conducted during the last two years. As a result of this process, the Ministry
of Education has a Multi-annual Operational Program (POMA) aimed at guiding ME's education
strategy during the period 2004-2015. In addition to this broad consultation process, ME has
financed several research studies and the implementation of some innovative experiences.

Research studies on current secondary education and implementation of first innovative
experiences. In total, 13 studies that consistently included IBE criteria were carried out by local
institutions and by well known national and international education consultants on secondary
education covering: (i) programs and curriculum development and alternatives; (ii) pedagogical
and methodological requirements; (iii) institutional setting and organization; (iv) social
expectations and demand for secondary education; (v) school management at the secondary
level; and (vi) teacher's pre-service and in-service training.

National and Departmental Consultation Workshops. Given the experience gained in primary
education and that the transformation of secondary education represents a new challenge, a wide
process of consultation and discussion with educational actors has been coordinated by ME: the
main activities conducted can be summarized as follows: (i) six national workshops with the
participation of 800 teachers were held to discuss curricular contents and methodologies: a
national workshop on physics and five regional workshops on Mathematics and Language
education; (ii) an international seminar was held on history and social sciences in secondary
education where 100 teachers and members of the SEDUCAs from the entire country
participated and agreed on the need to update and reduce contents, the importance of including
traditional knowledge of indigenous cultures, the need for new materials and bibliography; and
(iii) national and regional workshops where the draft proposal for the transformation of
secondary education, its vision, mission, strategy and objectives, were extensively discussed.

The above mentioned workshop has benefited from the participation of teacher associations,
principals, staff from the SEDUCAs, NGOs, churches, parents, students, representatives from the
productive sector, professional organizations, private and public enterprises, universities, police
and military institutions.

The New Operation. In response to the diagnosis and the consultation process described above,
the new operation intends to initiate the necessary transformation of the secondary level, taking
into consideration successful experiences. Some of the lessons learned from the primary
education project, that the Ministry considers particularly important, are:

    · The need for more participation by different social actors, both in decisions and
        responsibilities, in the understanding that the transformation is not a simple continuation
        of the ERP, but rather seeks to construct an education system oriented at serving a society
        that needs to overcome its internal colonialism.

    · The successful strategy of the educational projects in the primary level (in indigenous
        districts, rural nuclei and urban networks) needs to be extended to secondary schools and

      to be used to strengthen the link between the social participation approach and the
      education transformation process, reflected especially in the diversification of the
      curriculum.

   · The collective construction of the new curriculum designs, both for secondary education
      and teacher training, where interculturality and productivity-oriented learning are
      essential, requires more dialogue and negotiation with peoples from the different cultures.
      Diversification of the curriculum needs to be addressed from the beginning.

   · The IBE approach requires well prepared teachers who know the language, the culture
      and the specific needs and possibilities of the communities.

   · Interculturality needs to be strengthened; although changes have been made in primary
      education, the indigenous peoples still live in very unequal conditions, far from the
      objectives sought in the framework of a more democratic society.

   · Sustainability depends on reaching consensus in society, therefore, more communication
      and dissemination actions need to accompany the transformation process.

   · The proposed changes have to be understood as a new phase that rescues the positive
      aspects of the previous phase but also overcomes its weaknesses; public
      acknowledgement of these has to be a part of the new stage.

   · Secondary education needs urgent attention after having given priority to primary
      education for so many years (ME 2004c, 2005).

The results of the analytical work on the Indigenous People, the wide consultation process
conducted nationwide (Social Assessment, as well as the lessons learned from previously World
Bank projects have been incorporated in every component and activity of the project.