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Bilingual education in Kuna Yala

In Panama as a whole, the level of primary education coverage is high (98% of the citizenry). Indigenous areas however reflect different and lower levels of education: Panama's indigenous nations hold an average of just over 3 years of schooling, compared to an average of 7.5 years of schooling for the total population. In the case of Kuna Yala, the average schooling rate is of 4.5 years for males and 3.5 for females.

National legislation in Panama has traced specific indications on indigenous education. The Bilingual Education Program for indigenous communities was drafted in 1975. In 1995, the 1946 Education Act was modified introducing new articles defining the specifics of the education system for indigenous peoples: Intercultural Bilingual Education (known as EBI for the Spanish acronym). The first phase for the implementation of Intercultural Bilingual Education in Kuna Yala started in 2002. In 2005 the President of the Republic of Panama Martin Torrijos Espino announced the Foundation and Conceptualization Document for the National Intercultural Bilingual Education Plan, which maintains the concept of “cultural pertinence” as the basis of education for indigenous peoples.

The education system operating in Kuna Yala however, never managed to establish a link between the school and the community it was serving. One of the most important aspects of Kuna culture for example, is farming. But, agricultural production has decreased greatly these last years thus leading to food shortages that affect particularly children and that constitute one of the main reasons for mass migration toward urban centers. The EBI reform aims at rebuilding through school education a cultural link between Kuna youth and Kuna agricultural culture. One of the objectives is to achieve enough crop production to guarantee food for the families and the community. In the cultural and religious aspect, the competent Kuna authorities want the youth to recoup cultural Kuna values, and say that this goal can not be obtained simply by studying "Kuna subjects", disconnected from fundamental areas of knowledge.

Investigations in Panama have furthermore proved that school teachers have a weak link with the indigenous communities the work in: 48.81% of teachers in Kuna Yala had less than five years experience, 23.53% had a year or less teaching in first grade, 21.17% of them were unable to elaborate on their teaching experience with first-grade children because they were also busy attending the needs of other grades. May teachers do not speak Kuna and teach school subjects in Spanish, a language most children do not understand.

The figures show the relationship between the number of enrolled children and the rate of school dropouts and failure from 2002 thru 2005.

These figures show a steady number of dropouts and failures through four consecutive years. At the Kuna Yala regional level, the number of failures is highest in subjects such as Spanish, arithmetic and natural sciences. The rate of grade failure and school dropouts among native children is higher than the average in Panama, partly because courses are always offered in Spanish and only half of the indigenous children speak that language.

The competent Kuna authorities have identified a set of causes that need to be addressed: The absence of Kuna language in the teaching and learning processes. The contents of subjects taught in schools are not in sync with Kuna reality. The absence of a methodology to teach Spanish as a second language: children are taught as if they were Spanish-speaking not Kuna-speaking. Scarce parent input in their children's learning process. Education focuses more on aspects of Western culture and the Spanish language with a tendency to despise local Kuna cultural values.

In kindergartens in 2002, 2003, 2004 and 2005, the children were taught by only Spanish-speaking, non Kuna teachers. But the Kuna children only speak their own language, thus the children could not benefit from the basic need in a normal learning process where the mother-tongue is the first means of communications. This explains the children's apparent shyness.

It is in this context that from May 2004 thru July 2005 the early phase of the Intercultural Bilingual Education was first launched in Kuna Yala. During this initial stage specific activities were started to prepare key social segments of Kuna Yala to participate in setting up the EBI in the region. Kuna community leaders and linguists reached a consensus to unify criteria for reading and writing in Kuna language.

The specific objective of the second stage of the school reform is based on intercultural learning of other cultures from a solid knowledge of the "own" Kuna culture. It is an effort for children to integrate indigenous values during the school formative years. This strategy's foundation consists in creating a strong link between the schools and the center of Kuna culture, the Onmakedenga, the congress house in each community. By integrating the Onmakednega in the education process, the Kuna seem to have made theirs an African proverb: "it takes an entire village to raise a child".


Robert Scarcia
Journalist