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Bilingual Education in Bolivia

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Bilingual Education in Bolivia ¿& PA t ruc ( e, N r-eoJ W - b^ , , 1 'JZI s ^w S a 1 S ^^5 o I^ kit ,, t Luc_v Therina Briggs 85 rul- ,,e. R AS , G^ U mediate learning of Spanish ;' for which purpose "phonetic alpha- hets that maintain the greatest possible similarity to the Spanish alphabet will be adopted" ( República de Bolivia 1980:31). Ver- Die' íUlt , CG.. ü i C, , nacular languages are thus seen as, at best . a bridge to Spanish and. Bilingual Education in Bolivia COCHABAMBA - BOLIVIA at worst , a barrier to learning Children who arrive at school speak- ing only a vernacular language are taught to "read" Spanish before LUCY THERINA BRIGGS they understand what it means . Not surprisingly. dropout rates in rural schools in areas where the honre language is not Spanish are very high, even when teachers are themselves speakers of the child's A multilingual country without a national bilingual education home language , which is not always the case . As noted by contem- policy, Bolivia has a population of approximately six million di- porary researchers like Skutnabb-Kangas (1979) and Cummins vided among speakers of Spanish , Quechua , and Aymara , as well (1979), the kind of bilingualism attained by children who speak a as some twenty -six minority languages . It is generally conceded low-prestige language at home is often of a subtractive rather than that speakers of Quechua and Aymara , taken together, constitute an additive variety-that is , given no opportunity to develop school over 60 percent of the population . They live primarily in the west- skills in the stigmatized native language , they also fail to attain ern highlands , engaged in agriculture , trade , and mining. The Bo- educated native -speaker levels in the second language . The result livian sociolinguist Javier Albó points out that 1976 census figures in Bolivia is very low school achievement and functional illiteracy must be revised upward for speakers of vernacular languages and for a third of the population . In other words , while 1976 census downward for Spanish , to adjust for the fact that Spanish is the figures show increasing bilingualism under the present educational prestige language while the others are stigmatized (Albó 1980). system, much of it is merely incipient , nonfunctional bilingualism Comparison of language statistics from the 1950 and 1976 censuses with functional illiteracy. shows that knowledge of Spanish is increasing , with increasing bi- lingualism-that is , more speakers of Quechua and Aymara are now able to use Spanish to some extent without having given up their BILINGUAL EDUCATION IN THE BOLIVIAN LOWLANDS native languages . Nevertheless , Albó sounds a somber note, point- ing out that if present trends continue, disappearance of vernacular Bilingual education in the modem sense of the terco was intro- languages . is inevitable though not imminent . While universal duced to Bolivia about twenty - five years ago by missionary lin- Spanish- language acquisition would be of undoubted benefit to the guists associated with the Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL; country, must it be achieved at the loss of native languages and known in Spanish - speaking countries as the Instituto Lingüístico de cultures? Verano). In each host country, SIL works through the government. The tacit answer given to that question by the tradicional educa- coordinating its programs with those already in existence (if any). tion system of Bolivia has been yes . The system makes no provi- 13ilingual education is an outgrowth of the primary objective of SIL: sion for teaching children in the elementary grades in any language the translation of the Bible into all the languages of the world. In other than Spaíiish . Article 115 of Chapter X of the Bolivian Code Bolivia, SIL efforts have focused on the minority languages in low- of Education , based on Decree Law 03937 of 1950, refers to the land areas where Spanish is the majority language . SIL linguists use of vernacular languages in adult literacy programs only, stating have written grammars and literacy materials, training native speakers merely that native languages will be used "as a vehicle for the im- as teachers and supervising the use of the materials in schools. 86 Bilingual Education in Bolivia Lucy Therina Briggs 87 Irl November 1980 1 was invited to visit two primary schools for ance contract with the University of New Mexico, in twenty-two Ese Ejja and Cavineña speakers, taught by native speakers of the rural school districts in the department of Cochabamba. Like SIL, languages who had been trained as teachers by SIL. Each school the project uses a transitional model designed to transfer children to was multigrade, with about fifteen children ranging in age from five all-Spanish classrooms by fourth grade. Information on the project to twelve. The children read fluently in the native language, were may be found in two reports by USAID consultants (Development learning to speak and read Spanish, and were able to do accurate Associates, Inc. 1979, 1980) and in Solá and Weber (1978). arithmetic. The materials developed for the Quechua project resemble com- SIL will phase out of Bolivia in the next five years , leaving un- mercially published children's books in their use of illustrations in certain the future of the bilingual schools it has started. Once SIL color rather than in black and white, as in the simpler SIL format. leaves, the schools will probably again be assigned teachers who The method of teaching reading, beginning with whole words the have no knowledge of the local languages , much less of bilingual children already know, is similar to that used by SIL. Materials education , even though they may Nave normal school degrees the reflect the structure of Quechua, using a question-and-answer for- others lack. Critics of SIL fault that organization for failing to pro- mat familiar to the children from riddles and manipulating roots and vide training in linguistics to native speakers of the languages stud- suffixes in ways they already control orally. (In my opinion, the ied, and allege that the primary purpose of SIL is not conducive to method could profitably be adapted to teaching reading in Aymara.) developing community initiative sufficient to carry on where SIL Another positive feature is the use of three vowels to write Que- leaves off. The fact remains that SIL has provided literacy skills chua, which has only three vowel phonemes (as does Aymara). and materials in previously unwritten languages in many parts of Spelling in Aymara and Quechua is not yet standardized in Bolivia. the wordd, and its years of experience should be studied by anyone A controversy exists as to whether it is bett:3r to write the two lan- interested in the fleld of bilingual education . (A group of German guages with three or five vowels, proponents of five arguing that anthropological linguists has worked among the Guaraní-speaking the allophones [e] and [o] are predictable and therefore that writing Chiriguano in southeastern Bolivia , and report [Schuchard 1979] them will pose no problems for the beginning reader and will, rather, on the need for bilingual education among them.) facilitate eventual transfer of reading skills to Spanish, a five-vowel language . My observations support those of Martin-Barber (1975) and Pyle (1981) to the effect that the allophones are not predictable, BILINGUAL EDUCATION IN THE HIGHLAND AREAS and the fact that Aymara and Quechua make only three vowel dis- tinctions argues against using five in writing them, especially in Secular efforts in bilingual education have focused on the two beginning stages of reading. majority language groups in the highlands: Quechua and Aymara. Technical assistance and loan funding for all components of Ru- Two separate projects undertaken in 1977 under the auspices of the ral Education Project 1 were to end in April 1981, and it was he- Bolivian government and international funding agencies were de- lieved that the Ministry of Education would probably not continue signed to experiment with pilot projects in bilingual education. These to support the bilingual education component of the project. This are a Quechua/Spanish project in Cochabamba and an Aymara/ would be unfortunate, as it has only recently begun to show results. Spanish project in La Paz. An unedited videotape made in one of the project schools shows The Quechua/Spanish project is a component of Rural Education children in a bilingual classroom reading easily in both Quechua Project 1, funded by USAID under an agreement with the Bolivian and Spanish, and answering questions about what they have read, Ministry of Education and administered through a technical assist- in contrast to children in a traditional classroom-bored and si- 88 Bilingua! Education in Bolivia Lucy Therina Briggs 89 Ient-and an older student reading Spanish in the halting manner critica¡ reading skills, and introduce Spanish as a second language taught traditionally. According to USAID, lower dropout rates have orally, delaying the introduction of Spanish reading until students resulted froni the project. Opinions expressed by principals, teach- have "some oral language background in Spanish . and . .. an ers, and parents are mixed . While an analysis conducted by a Bo- independent reading ability in Quechua" (Development Associates. livian consulting firm in July 1980 (Rivera et al. 1980) revealed Inc. 1980:50). generally favorable attitudes toward the project, an interna! evalu- In its major outlines, the project appears well designed, but in ation carried out later by Bolivian technicians (Angulo Gallinate et my opinion it fails to take sufficient account of Bolivian sociopo- al. 1980) found mainly unfavorable attitudes. A USAID official has litical realities. As a precondition fór a U . S. loan, the project would observed that support varied depending on the language-use situa- require the creation of a Department of Bilingual Education that tion in each community, being stronger in Quechua-dominant, and would "help create a national superstructure for the development of weaker in Spanish -dominant, areas (Dr.
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