La Revolución Ciudadana y la Apuesta por una Educación Intercultural y Bilingüe para todos

The article by Sebastián Granda, "La Revolución Ciudadana y la apuesta por una educación intercultural y bilingüe para todos", presents a critical analysis of a decade of IBE implementation in Ecuador, as a result of the profound legislative changes that took place in the country, within the framework of the government of the Revolución Ciudadana. The author describes and analyzes at length the norms related to interculturalism and bilingualism emanating from the Political Constitution of Ecuador, since 2008 when the plurinationality regime was adopted and when the notion of interculturalism, which served as a platform for indigenous demands, became an institutional precept. Based on this, the current situation of IBE is analyzed, highlighting the gap that separates the legal rhetoric from the implementation of this educational modality in schools and classrooms and how "against the grain of the constitutional postulates and the sophisticated rhetoric in favor of interculturality, the government did not manage to interculturalize the educational system in the terms conceptualized in its own project". Additionally, it is emphasized that if any progress was made, it was in the curricular field of education of the non-indigenous population, but no impact was achieved as there were no significant changes in teacher training and classroom accompaniment. In the author's opinion, there is no evidence of progress in all other areas, in relation to what was done in previous decades, with the indigenous population being the most affected. As a result, in the name of interculturalism for all, the indigenous people lost control and management capacity over indigenous education. It was concluded that the hierarchical and centralized educational model of the white-mestizo population was imposed, as there was resistance in many sectors and particularly among a sector of teachers and ministry officials, due to the persistence of racist and discriminatory attitudes that idealize "the white" and reduce the indigenous to folklore. And although the legislation includes the teaching of indigenous languages for all, this did not materialize. The article closes by stressing the need for long term work and spaces for deliberation, participation and, above all, autonomy to formulate curricular proposals and for classroom work to build "[...] an intercultural, plurinational, democratic and solidary coexistence", as established by the 2011 Organic Law of Intercultural Education, in its article 3.