BackDuring the presentation of his recent report entitled 'Contributions to a National Policy on intercultural bilingual education for the benefit of Peru's Indigenous Peoples' Ombudsman Eduardo Vega Luna affirmed: "Indigenous children and adolescents, in the Amazon as well as in the Andean region, are not receiving high-quality intercultural bilingual education, which constitutes a serious flaw in our country's educational system."
Close to 1.05 million indigenous children aged between 3 and 17 years, with indigenous mother tongues live in Peru and have – as stated Vega Luna – a right to intercultural bilingual education. However, the investigation revealed a different story: in terms of education indigenous people find themselves in a precarious situation of injustice and abandonment. Therefore, after the recent general elections, the Institution of the Public Defender calls on the future government to adopt and implement a new National Plan on Intercultural Bilingual Education in order to pursue a policy which takes three levels of education into account: - initial, primary and secondary – especially in the rural areas.
Source: Dirección de Coordinación Territorial de la Defensoría del Pueblo
