Intercultural bilingual education in Guatemala
Guatemala was described as a multi-ethnic, multicultural and multilingual country in the Constitution of 1985, which recognizes the right to cultural identity (Article 58) and says that bilingual instruction is preferable in regions with large indigenous populations.
[7][8] Guatemala is one of a number of Latin American countries (including Bolivia, Ecuador, Peru, Nicaragua and Mexico) whose governments have implemented intercultural, bilingual education reform.
Factors related to geographical location, ethnicity, and gender create great disparity in the educational opportunities available to Guatemalan children and their academic success.
Statistics suggest that where schoolchildren live may partially determine their economic opportunities, since rural illiteracy rates are much higher than those in cities.
Castilianization was intended as a preparatory year in which oral Spanish would be taught and indigenous children could acclimate to a formal school environment.
[1] The Bilingual Castilianization Program capitalized on this clause, beginning school for Mayan children one year early to improve literacy in the mother language and provide simultaneous instruction in Spanish.
[1] Instead of employing teachers, the program enlisted bilingual "promoters" who taught children part-time as a portion of their community-service time teaching adult-literacy classes.
[4] The program, which originally served Ixil speakers, later extended to rural communities of Guatemala's four major indigenous languages: Kʼicheʼ, Kaqchikel, Qʼeqchiʼ, and Mam.
[12] The program was designed to assimilate and acculturate Mayan children,[10] but logistical problems arose related to the language abilities and dialects of the bilingual promoters.
The United States Agency for International Development (USAID), which had been working with the government of Guatemala since 1979, provided some funding for the project.
[4] For the pre-primary year of castilianization through the second grade, the project provided materials for all academic subjects in Kʼicheʼ, Kaqchikel, Qʼeqchiʼ, and Mam.
Its mission is "to strengthen Mayan ethnic identity, and to promote the integral and harmonious development of the Indian population with the linguistic context of a plural Guatemalan society so that it may respond to its own authentic needs and legitimate interests".
[15] Initially focusing on the Kʼicheʼ, Kaqchikel, Qʼeqchi and Mam language communities, PRONEBI's five-year goal was to provide bilingual education in 800 schools.
[16] Bilingual education programs have reduced repetition and dropout rates and improved students' performance in reading, writing, mathematics and Spanish.
[11] However, increased costs of implementing bilingual education programs, especially as PRONEBI expands to more rural areas and less-widely-spoken languages, may offset that savings.
[11] Mayan parents recognize the value of Spanish literacy for their children, especially since Spanish-language skills increase job opportunities.
[7] Bridging the academic development of the student at school and at home presents more challenges, especially when parents are monolingual Mayan-language speakers.
PRONEBI aims to retain the "purity" of the Mayan languages by encouraging the development of neologisms, using Mayan-language lexicons to express foreign concepts.
In some cases, intercultural bilingual education for children may motivate adults in indigenous communities to begin (or continue) indigenous-language learning informally or through Mayan revitalization organizations.
