Intercultural Bilingual Education and Ancestral Knowledge in Ecuador

Eighty years ago, the dream of bilingual and, even more, intercultural education seemed impossible. In the 1940s, Dolores Cacuango and others dared to challenge the power of the landowners and founded their own schools to teach "the letter" to children and young people. These schools were illegal because they did not have the backing of the State and clandestine because they were run in secret from the landowner. As we know, the oppressor has never been interested in the oppressed studying.

Between the clandestine schools that were made in the huts of the villagers during the night to avoid being discovered and having bilingual educational units and the Intercultural University Amawtay Wasi has been a historical struggle, there is a huge legacy of liberation struggle of native peoples.

This reminds us of the words of the Afro-American writer James Baldwin: "Not everything that is faced can be changed; but nothing can be changed until it is faced".

Currently in Ecuador the Intercultural Bilingual Education System is guaranteed by the Constitution and endorsed by the Organic Law of Intercultural Bilingual Education. The Ecuadorian State currently has an Education Model conformed by its own structure, attached to the Ministry of Education, in charge of generating the educational guidelines for indigenous peoples and nationalities that coexist in the national territory.

The Intercultural Bilingual Education System of the indigenous nationalities and peoples of Ecuador covers from early stimulation to higher education. It is aimed at the implementation of the plurinational and intercultural State, within the framework of sustainable development with a long-term vision (Constitution of 2008). Bilingual intercultural education should be culturally relevant, with the aim of invigorating the knowledge of the native peoples of these lands, in combination with contemporary knowledge, recovering respect for all expressions of life, both human and natural.

 The bilingual schools and colleges and the Intercultural University of Indigenous Peoples and Nationalities Amawtay Wasi focus on seeking the affirmation of cultural diversity by invigorating local knowledge and the culture of their respective communities in accordance with the notions of time and space of the Andean cosmovision, with the paradigm of the chakana that proposes diverse knowledge at the service of the community and balanced dialogue with modern Western knowledge.

For the indigenous peoples and nationalities of Ecuador, language is a reference to represent who we are and where we come from, the language contributes to the cultural richness of the people, in the twentieth century the teaching of the Kichwa language was claimed as part of the identity and rights of the indigenous population, as we had imposed the language of the powerful, For this reason for the bilingual educational units it is essential that there is respect for the mother tongue and its teaching is a priority the Runa Shimi or language of the people, the Kichwa language for the peoples of the north, as well as the other languages that exist in Ecuador so that they do not disappear and there is a rescue our identity.

Since 2015 is implementing a flagship project such as the construction of educational units guardians of the language.

Intercultural education promotes a different academy where all actors are involved, teachers, students, the community and the family, so that they can share spaces where they can demonstrate their knowledge.

For example, at Amawtay University it contributes to the formation of human beings who put their wisdom at the service of a collective practice to transform reality and create the community social fabric as a life strategy for the whole society. In this regard, the University establishes the link with society as the structuring axis of educational practice. We learn in, with and for the community.

The Living Calendar is a pedagogical instrument that inserts ancestral wisdom into the curriculum of the Intercultural Bilingual Education System, so that new generations do not lose the customs and traditions of their ancestors. In this calendar we can find:

• productive and economic activities (agricultural production, livestock,
• artistic; commerce, medicine, gastronomy, tourism, hunting, fishing, etc.), with cultural.
• Socio-cultural experiences (mingas, festive celebrations, ancestral games, etc.).
• ancestral games and events specific to the community and school at a certain time of the year).
• Spiritual practices of the people or nationality (rituals or beliefs that take place at a given time of the year).
• beliefs that take place at a certain time of the year.

Ancestral Knowledge of Ecuador that are within the intercultural bilingual education.

Since historical times, knowledge has had a different connotation, giving it a greater transcendence in our peoples. Knowledge is an important resource for all humanity, as it enriches mutual knowledge through dialogue, and allows the conservation of the broad spectrum of cultural diversity existing in a given territory.

The ancestral knowledge that is manifested in our country through the collective identity of the people. The knowledge is diverse such as: music, dance, games, mythology, rites, customs, handicrafts, etc.

The Jahuay

The Jahuay is a millenary ritual chant directed to mother earth, it is performed during the barley and wheat harvest, precisely in the months of July and August, at the time established by the Andean calendar for the harvest, in the provinces of Cañar and Chimborazo.

This chant and chanted by other members of the community. However, with the arrival of the Spaniards and the exploitation to which the indigenous people were subjected, the millenary tradition became a form of encouragement to continue with the long working days imposed by the Spaniards.

Nowadays, due to several factors such as the modernization of the agricultural field, the migration of those who lived in the countryside and the aging of the pakis, who were in charge of directing the singing of the Jahuay, the ritual has been weakened and this puts at risk a set of poems and couplets, in which they expressed their experiences and emotions. That is why several communities in both Cañar and Chimborazo have organized to develop events in which they seek to recreate and recover this ritual.

Education should be focused on a pedagogy rooted in the historical and cultural ancestral millenary, the fabric of the Andean Thought as a cosmocentric vision, from epistemic, ontological and axiological bases.

Andean Pedagogy must be based on the principles of Andean Thought strengthened by philosophy, history, anthropology, archeology, sociology and psychology.

Clearly we have an enormous challenge ahead of us. Colonization not only left us a colonial state, but also institutions and a law that guarantees colonial rule. That is why our task is to decolonize law, to stop believing that “law is only state law”. And although colonization has never ended, it has not been completely successful. Peoples and nationalities have their own capacity for self-regulation, mechanisms of conflict resolution and mechanisms of self-government, without which they would not have been able to survive.

As Gramsci would say: "Educate yourselves, because we will need all our intelligence. Get excited, because we will need all our enthusiasm; Get organized, because we will need all our strength."