Children in Bolivia and Peru are losing the skill to speak South America’s indigenous languages: exploring the educational reform aiming to keep Quechua alive

FK&Y’s Anna Livingstone discusses the challenge posed by ‘dying’ languages, witnessed on her recent travels in South America

Data from the UN in 2009 showed that there are 270 million people in 90 countries who identify as indigenous, making up 5% of the global population and 15% of the world’s poor. While travelling in South America for the last 5 months, I came across many diverse cultures and the indigenous languages that accompanied them. While this was a wonderful experience, I noticed that public services and systems within the continent appeared to operate primarily in Spanish. However, many of the people conversationally speak different languages. I wondered if this caused any problems politically or structurally within the continent. The centre of the old Inca Empire, in modern day Peru and Bolivia, is where one indigenous language, Quechua, seemed to be commonly spoken as a first, and sometimes sole, language. In this blog post, I will explore indigenous languages in education and the fate of Quechua.

The politics of language in Latin America has been dominated by a push towards colonial assimilation in the twentieth century. It is only in recent years that there has been a policy shift that focuses on recognising indigenous and linguistic diversity. While linguistic rights are now being recognised officially on the continent, implementation has been limited with one issue being underlying racism towards indigenous peoples.

An expert paper, written for the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, highlights the educational model that utilises dominant languages for instruction as having ‘extremely negative consequences for the achievement of goals deduced from central human rights instruments and thus for the right to education.’ The report argues that linguistically, inaccessible education perpetuates poverty and leads to children belonging to indigenous groups receiving subtractive education. Subtractive Education occurs when curriculum policies, processes or practices exclude students’ culture and/or language from their learning context; this means that assimilation into the ‘mainstream’ is a prior requirement for success. As well as affecting the education prospects of children, there is also a threat to the very languages and cultures themselves. Optimistic estimates suggest that 50% of languages currently spoken will be extinct by 2100, while a more pessimistic estimate is 90% of languages lost.

Quechua is the most widely spoken indigenous language in the Americas. However the limited amount of teaching in the language means that it is mainly utilised orally, with limited written sources to be found; the language is in danger of becoming obsolete. Bolivia in particular is working hard to change this, with the introduction of the Educational Reform Act (1994) stipulating that children should be taught in their mother tongue during their first years of schooling, with Spanish brought in later as a second language. One criticism of this however has been that indigenous people can still feel excluded from society.

In response to this, the current president of Bolivia, Evo Morales, has launched educational reform in the last decade which has led to the illiteracy rate dropping to 2.9%, the lowest in the country’s history. Ambitious plans are in place for literacy programs in the 36 recognized indigenous languages, all of which are official languages of Bolivia. The 2009 constitution ruled that government bodies must select another of the country’s official languages alongside Spanish. All state officials and civil servants are required to speak at least one indigenous language.

Bilingual policies have also been instated in Peru, where many variations of Quechua exist, and attempts are being made towards revitalising indigenous languages.  Unlike neighbouring Bolivia however, state officials and civil servants are not required to speak at least one indigenous language in Peru. It is understandable, but a real concern, that rural communities, having faced discrimination in education and employment, are far more likely to encourage the speaking of Spanish among the next generation. In some instances, older generations go as far as to refuse to speak Quechua with children. In this beautiful and ancient land, the threat to the indigenous language and culture is still very real.

Anna Livingstone is a Research Executive at FK&Y with a particular interest in qualitative research, education and children’s wellbeing. She recently took time out to travel and explore South America.