Rethinking Bilingual Education in Peru: Intercultural Politics, State Policy and Indigenous Rights

Bilingual education in Peru: Evidence on how Quechua-medium education affects indigenous children's academic achievement

“…Several other Latin American countries with large Indigenous populations, like Bolivia and Guatemala, implement their own versions of the EIB program, with varying degrees of community and parental involvement ( Garcia, 2010 ). To our knowledge, the economic literature has as of yet not analyzed these programs' results likely due to data limitations and methodological barriers.…”

“…Earlier and more recent studies on Peru's EIB program have found obstacles to its implementation: some schools lacked bilingual educational materials ( DIGEIBIR, 2005;Garcia, 2010;Montoya Rojas, 2001 ); the instructional medium guidelines were difficult to follow in multigrade schools ( Rodriguez Lozano, 2012 ); teachers with adequate language knowledge were sometimes not available ( Kudo, 2004;Montoya Rojas, 2001 ); teacher-training sessions were insufficient ( Garcia, 2010;Montoya Rojas, 20 01;Trapnell, 20 03 ) and, the 'intercultural' aspect of the program was difficult to operationalize ( DIGEIBIR, 2005;Kudo, 2004 ). In addition, although the government emphasizes the importance of collaborating with communities ( DIGEIBIR, 2013;, many Indigenous parents rejected bilingual education since they feared that it may interfere with Spanish acquisition ( Garcia, 2010;Kudo, 2004;Montoya Rojas, 2001 ).…”

“…In addition, although the government emphasizes the importance of collaborating with communities ( DIGEIBIR, 2013;, many Indigenous parents rejected bilingual education since they feared that it may interfere with Spanish acquisition ( Garcia, 2010;Kudo, 2004;Montoya Rojas, 2001 ). López (2002) uses fieldwork data collected between 1999 and 2001 from 14 Indigenous or bilingual communities to analyze language practices in EIB classrooms.…”

“…The existing qualitative evidence suggests that some Quechua speaking parents express disapproval of the program since they fear that it may impede children's Spanish acquisition ( Garcia, 2010;López, 2002 ), while others welcome instructions in Quechua ( López, 2002 ). Thus, the qualitative evidence does not allow us to make any strong predictions of whether Quechua speaking parents 22 Adding controls for school shift, number of class hours per day, number of weeks that the school is opened per year, and the teachers' level of education changes the coefficients only very marginally.…”

“…29 There is still potential for omitted variable bias: Since the EIB program is a government sponsored program, it is possible that these schools have access to other services and more support from the community. Qualitative evidence suggests, however, that Quechua-medium schools often lack sufficient resources to fully implement the program ( DIGEIBIR, 2005;Garcia, 2010;Kudo, 2004;Montoya Rojas, 2001;Trapnell, 2003 ). Still, we test the hypothesis that the effect of attending a Quechua-medium school on Indigenous students' achievement presented in Table 4 is explained by additional community, parent and state support, 30 teachers' resources, 31 superior quality of the principal's management, 32 or personnel, materials and other resources not accounted for in the main estimations, 33 by including variables accounting for these factors in the full model.…”