Author: Johanna M Hohenthal

Text by Johanna Hohenthal, Katy Machoa and Tuija Veintie

[Haz clic aquí para version en español]

In March 2020, due to the health crisis caused by COVID-19, classes were suspended in all educational units in Ecuador. In general, a prolonged suspension of classes has long-term consequences, particularly for marginalized and low-income groups (Giannini 2020). Therefore, we considered important to monitor the situation in intercultural bilingual schools during the pandemic. Due to the conditions of physical distancing, the research team has been unable to visit schools in the Amazonian region. Instead, we conducted telephone interviews with the principals of the educational units between 11 May and 3 June. We managed to contact 9 of the 14 schools in the Pastaza province that we had visited earlier during the research project. These schools represent approximately half of the intercultural bilingual schools that have a high school level program in Pastaza (AMIE, school year 2018-2019).

The interviews revealed several difficulties in implementing intercultural bilingual education in the Amazonian region during the health emergency. Most school principals and teachers try to work from home but many of them lack the computer and internet connection that are necessary for teleworking and organizing virtual teaching. Similarly, most students do not have the possibility to attend virtual education (Figure 1). However, the third year high school students have somewhat better access to the internet than the other students. One of the principals estimates that in their educational unit up to 70% of the third year high school students participate in virtual education to a certain degree. This is a positive thing, because it is important for the third year students to finish their studies to proceed to higher education or working life. However, for the vast majority of high school students the only option to continue their studies is to use the printed learning guides. Continue reading “Exclusive distances: intercultural bilingual education during the COVID-19 pandemic in Ecuadorian Amazonia”

Text and photos: Johanna Hohenthal

The government of Rafael Correa (2007-2017) pushed modernization of the education system in Ecuador through the establishment of large millennium schools at the expense of small rural schools [1, 2]. In the province of Pastaza, the government did not close upper secondary schools, but the reform hit hardest to the primary school students whose school journeys became longer due to closing down of community schools. In March, the research team visited the Shuar territory where three primary schools had been closed and several others had barely avoided the closure thanks to community resistance.

Continue reading “Community resistance against school closure in the Shuar territory”

Text and photos by Riikka Kaukonen

We had already been conducting fieldwork for a bit over one month in the city of Puyo and the communities surrounding it, as we stood in front of a small monoplane on the late morning of 22^nd of October. The past months we had concentrated on the experiences of indigenous students of different levels of higher education:

What were the main obstacles they had faced during their education history?

How they saw the relationship between occidental epistemology present in the educative system, and the cosmovision and worldviews of their respective backgrounds?

How could the intercultural and bilingual education programs strengthen the identity and self image of the indigenous nationalities of Pastaza, while engaging with the rich multiplicity and differences that exists between and inside these groups?

Continue reading “Into the Forest”