Indigenous intracultural, intercultural and plurilingual education in Bolivia : an analysis of its implementation

Abstract

Like the rest of Latin American states, Bolivia’s colonial history was marked by the mainstream society domination, assimilation and cultural eradication, which forced indigenous peoples to resist and claim their rights. One of these is the right to education, which is an economic, social and cultural right, enshrined in several international legal instruments Bolivia has ratified or accessed. Like all human beings, indigenous peoples enjoy this fundamental right but the specific indigenous context must be taken into account when ensuring its enjoyment. The purpose of this thesis is to analyse Bolivia’s compliance with its international treaties obligations regarding the availability, accessibility, acceptability and adaptability of the right to education, through the evaluation of the “structure, process and outcome indicators”. The struggle of indigenous movements and the evolution of the political and educational contexts led to the establishment of an intracultural, intercultural and plurilingual education, aimed to be consistent with the cultural diversity of the country Our analysis demonstrates that, although Bolivia recognises and protects legally the right to education and makes efforts to ensure this through several action plans and programs, the reality of education on the ground seems to be still far from the state’s international obligations.