Interactive Education Materials on Indigenous Cultures - Bolivia

This project has started in 2001 with the idea to preserve and document books, fotos and video materials on indigenous people collected by APCOB (an organisation that supports indigenous farmers in East Bolivia) since the 1950s. The materials represent a rich source of cultural heritage on the various indigenous people in Bolivia. 

Once documented, it was thought to use the materials to develop interactive educational materials for primary and secondary education. This resulted in the production of a series of 5 DVDs on different indigenous people in the eastern high lands of Bolivia.

The DVDs are developed by an interdisciplinary team of technical, antropologic and pedagogic experts and in collaboration with a group of teachers and students. They include high-quality multi-media reference material on history, and contemporary social, cultural and economic aspects of the life of indigenous people.

The products are implemented in a first group of 15 schools in the department Santa Cruz and are currently used by 7,000 teachers and students. The materials are also made available to the Ministry of Education, which is currently implementing a national Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) programme for schools.

IICD is in charge of the succesful implementation of this project. It offers both financial support, helps with organising training- and other events and with problems that can occur. IICD also evaluates the project through its monitoring and evaluation system.This is a system used to find out what is and is not functioning in a project enabling the project partner to make improvements if necessary.

In Bolivia the majority of the population has an intercultural background, mostly with indigenous influence. Yet, in the education sector there are hardly educational materials available to raise awareness about the wide variety of cultural, economic and social history and contemporary live of indigenous people in Bolivia. This results in a lack of understanding and often problems of racism among indigenous people and between indigenous people and the mestizo population. 

Read more about IICD's Bolivia Country Programme.

Key outputs sofar:

• 5 modules presented on inter-active educational CDs
• Computer labs are functional in 15 schools in urban and rural areas around Santa Cruz
• Adminsitrative committees of parents and teachers manage the centres in a sustainable way assisted by monthly contributions by the parents
• Teachers trained in pedagogic, antropology and technical use of the materials developed
• 7,000 students in 15 schools make use of the modules as part of the school's curricula using it as cross-cutting materials in history, language, societal lessons
• Schools organise an annual fare presenting real dramatized cases of the life of indigenous people based on knowledge gained through the interactive CDs

• An agreement is signed with the Ministry of Education to distribute DVDs and train teachers of 200 schools participating in the national ICT for education programme. As part of the collaboration with the Ministry, a guide is developed for instruction of teachers using the interactive DVDs;

• The project has also signed an agreement with the National Ethnography and Folklore Museum in La Paz to develop a new interactive DVD for primary and secondary education on the Aymara indigenous people, representing the largest ethnic group in Bolivia. This DVD will be the 6th DVD produced on indigenous people in Bolivia.

The general objective of this project is to raise awareness about the cultural, economic and social practises and knowledge of the various indigenous peoples in Bolivia.

Specific objectives:

• Increasing teaching quality - Increase the quality of teaching and learning by teachers and students. It is also very imported that teachers receive some training in how to work with interactive material such as DVDs;
• Raising self esteem – Both students and teachers are often ashamed to say that they belong to a certain indigenous group. With the APCOB project, they learn that they can be proud of their heritage or the heritage of others.

The project focuses mainly on the assimilation of ICTs in the classrooms and on the development of digital content for primary and secondary education. Their overall objective is to improve the quality of teaching and learning processes. The focus groups include school authorities, parents, teachers and students. The teachers and students have indicated a very high and sustained development impact among the 7,000 teachers and students participating in the project over the period 2004-2008.

These are the main lessons learned:

• In this sector, there is a good balance between women and men participating. And schools participating in the projects are located in rural areas and peri-urban sectors of low-income people
• 95% of the beneficiaries declare to be satisfied with the training and the support received during the implementation phase of the programs in their schools. They all agree that the use of ICTs is a positive element in learning processes and that as long as they are used in an appropriate way, they contribute to improve the quality of education
• Almost 100% of the participants feel more aware and empowered by the use of ICT in the class room
• As regards economic impact, 80% of the school authorities, teachers and students declare to be satisfied with their access to digital technology as they feel that the use of computers will help them to be connected with the world and will give them more opportunities to find a good job and thus improve their living standards
• With 80% of the participants perceiving a clear impact, the impact attained shows clearly the important role played by ICTs in improving the quality of education, one of the most important indicators in the sector. The main reason that pushed the teachers to work with ICTs was the desire to learn more and at the same time to facilitate the learning process for their students

Read more about IICD's approach towards Education.

These projects focus mainly on the assimilation of ICTs in the classrooms and on the development of digital content for primary and secondary education. Their overall objective is to improve the quality of teaching and learning processes. The focus group includes school authorities, parents, teachers and students. These are the main lessons learned:

• The users showed an interest to communicate with the world, with other peoples and other cultures. The ethnographic audiovisual material used by APCOB has helped the students recover the culture of the different peoples in the Oriente Boliviano (Eastern regions of the country). Teachers affirm that: “thanks to the digital material prepared by the projects working in the area of education, students have become aware of the situation of indigenous peoples and this has contributed to generate respect in the students. Being more respectful has taught them to be more tolerant and to condemn racism.”
• Teachers and students are now able to improve the performance of their educational activities and turn them more effective and efficient. The project stands as a new challenge for them and to overcome all the obstacles they count on the support of the SEDUCAS at the local level.
• Teachers are aware of the fact that the application of ICTs in the learning and teaching processes has been a big step forward: “students are more motivated and they develop their own learning materials. They are not afraid of using computers any more, they feel confident and the trainings have empowered them.”
• Thanks to ICTs in the classroom, students have gained the capacity to contextualize contents in the learning processes: “the process of learning and sharing contents becomes pleasant when performed by means of didactic and interactive games. And this is something novel and original for the students.” For their part, students affirm that the use of the Internet has enabled them to get in touch with other cultures and with other educational institutions. Here, a testimony of a student: “the access, use and management of ICTs, in particular the computer was something amazing. We felt that when we learnt how to work with a computer we had accomplished our first goal.”
• Teachers claim the implementation of ICTs in every educational institution in Bolivia. Thus, they are asking for more support and follow up so as to be able to keep moving forward.
• The participants are asking for more computers to facilitate the learning processes of the students and they want to rely on an improved Internet access to be able to conduct their own researches and support the ones of the students.

ABCOP (Apoyo Para el Campesino-Indígena del Oriente Boliviano) is an organisation that supports indigenous farmers in East Bolivia. This ABCOP project was set up in 2001 with the support of the International Institute of Communication and Development (IICD) in close partnership with the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC).