Intercultural Universities in Latin America: Lessons for India

By V Santhakumar and Gunther Dietz

1.1 Introduction

There are marginalized social groups in India that are yet to have adequate access to higher education. These include the so-called lower castes and the tribal communities. These two groups together constitute more than a quarter of the Indian population. Their limited use of higher education is due to their historical deprivation in terms of assets and laggard achievements in school education. This situation has encouraged governments to follow the policies of affirmative action, that is, the reservation of seats in higher education for these groups. However, such affirmative action is found to be inadequate for two major reasons. First, many children from these groups may not use it due to their non-completion or under-achievements in school education.

Secondly, formal education (including school education) may not be connected to the living reality of these social groups and this is especially so for the Scheduled Tribes (STs). This can alienate them from the process of education and can reduce its benefits to them. The conventional higher education is not designed to address the specific challenges faced by these social groups. For example, the tribal communities or the indigenous people would benefit more from a school education that relates to their social context by teachers who are trained to provide it. This, in turn, requires changes in the curriculum and pedagogy of teacher education in universities. Is it possible to use the platform of higher education, specifically, that of a university, to address such challenges faced by specific social groups in India and elsewhere? It is in this context that the intercultural universities that have come up in Latin America in the new millennium acquire importance. These aim at addressing the higher education needs of primarily the indigenous people of the countries in the region.

There is sizable literature on the origin and trajectory of, and the challenges faced by these universities¹. This article does not aim at a comprehensive review of this literature. It has a limited objective; it looks at the experience of these universities to draw important lessons for the provision of inclusive higher education in India. It is based on a summarization of secondary literature, and the Indian author’s short-period field visit to an intercultural university in Mexico, and interaction with teachers and students involved at different stages of intercultural education in Mexico, Colombia and Brazil. The article aims at communicating this to a wider set of readers and not just educationists and researchers.

2. The Need for and the conceptual basis of intercultural universities

A relatively new kind of universities have emerged in the 21st century in the Latin American countries to address the limitations of conventional universities in addressing the needs of the indigenous people². There are many challenges in facilitating the higher education of these people. First is their historical `under-achievements’ in school education based on the standards of formal education. This may have contributed to the underrepresentation of indigenous groups in higher education, as universities have always been located far from indigenous regions<sup>3</sup>. Secondly, there was an imposition of an education, which was completely alien to their sociocultural context, by outsiders starting from the colonial invaders of their land<sup>4</sup>. This was also true of the higher education (which only a few of these indigenous people could receive due to the under-achievements in school education and also other socio-economic conditions). Whenever such a higher education is successfully used by indigenous people, it has resulted in assimilating them into the mainstream or industrialized society but only at its lower tiers (say, through the employment as relatively lesser-skilled workers). This could be another factor that dampens their interest in conventional higher education. All these might have gradually led (also as part of their social and political awakening and mobilization) to a demand for an education which is socially and contextually relevant, and which does not compel them to reflect poorly on their own cultural traits and indigenous knowledge. Cultural recognition without assimilation has become a major claim of indigenous movements and organisations demanding access to higher education. Moreover, there is a universal need to visualize `equitable and sustainable development’ of these people considering their intrinsic features and the imperatives of human society, as a whole. There is a need to design a higher education that is in tune with this vision.

It is in this context that the idea or paradigm of intercultural education⁵ acquires importance for the education of indigenous people (though theoretically, such a paradigm should be relevant for the education of all). Such an intercultural education `respects the cultural identity of the learner through the provision of culturally appropriate and responsive quality education for all’. It `builds upon the diverse systems of knowledge and experiences of the learners; incorporates their histories, knowledge and technologies, value-systems and further social, economic and cultural aspirations; introduces the learners to an understanding and an appreciation of their cultural heritage; aims at developing respect for the learners’ cultural identity, language and values; and makes use of local resources’. Such an intercultural education has become the basis of not only school education aimed at indigenous people, but also their higher education in parts of Latin America. Intercultural universities are an outcome of such a transformation in the thinking on education.

Dietz and Cortes (2011) have noted the following features of the intercultural university: `Recognition of cultural diversity; development of culturally pertinent educational programs; interculturality as a new form of initiating relations between diverse cultural, linguistic and ethnic groups; democratic coexistence in society; generate knowledge in the localities of the intercultural regions through the training of professionals and intellectuals committed to the economic and cultural development of community, regional and national territories, whose activities contribute to promoting a process of revaluing and revitalising the native cultures and languages’. It would be timely to look at such universities for their experience and relevance for other countries, such as India. In the following section, we take up the case of Intercultural University in the state of Veracruz in Mexico.

3. Intercultural University of Veracruz, Mexico

Though higher education is well developed in Mexico, it did not attract many students from the indigenous population. It is to address this issue that the University of Veracruz, a conventional university, has established its own Intercultural University of Veracruz, Universidad Veracruzana Intercultural (UVI) with the support from the state government of Veracruz and the central government. This was also in response to the demand by organizations of indigenous people for a stronger representation in higher education and for change in its content to meet their needs. The UVI has a specific social purpose – to contribute to the education and welfare of the indigenous groups in the region. In this, there is some similarity with the Azim Premji University, which is described here. The UVI is one of the eleven such intercultural universities in Mexico, though this is the only one established by a conventional university. The administrative office of the university is located in Xalapa, but its academic programs take place in four regional campuses within the state of Veracruz.

Mexico has a substantial number of people with roots in pre-colonial or indigenous populations. About 10% of its population considers itself as indigenous. Scholars note that this could be an underestimation since many people, for various reasons, are not willing to assert their indigenousness. Even the mainstream population of Mexico has roots in one or the other indigenous groups, and this is evident from their familiarity with different indigenous languages. Veracruz state is known for the presence of different groups of indigenous people, such as Náhuatl, Totonaco, Tének, Tepehua, Ñahñú, Popoluca, and Zoque, among others. The state of Veracruz has mountainous areas, like Zongolica, and the Náhuatl population there continues to consider themselves indigenous. One of the regional campuses of the UVI is located here.

Indigenous population of Mexico continues to face issues of poverty, deprivation, and underdevelopment. Based on one estimate nearly 73% of indigenous households in Mexico live below the poverty line (CONEVAL, 2012)⁶. The development gap between indigenous and non-indigenous population is more pronounced in rural areas. Santhakumar, the Indian author of this paper, could see, as part of the field-work for this article, mothers in their thirties with seven to eight children, girls of 16-17 years with kids, schools without teachers, not enough access to transport facilities, and people surviving within minimal means. This situation is similar to that in many parts of India.

Though a few students from the indigenous groups in Mexico study in conventional universities, higher education is not common among them. Moreover, these universities may not have a specific objective of addressing the challenges faced by these communities. It is in this context that the UVI was established with twin objectives – to provide higher education to the students from these communities, and; to create a set of regionally-trained professionals who can address their challenges. These objectives include the development of educational materials in indigenous languages (to be used in schools and universities), the documentation and reflection on their knowledge and other cultural practices, and addressing their healthcare, education, livelihood and other such challenges.

The Bachelor’s program in Intercultural Management for Development is the main degree offered by the UVI. The curriculum is expected to be inter-disciplinary and adapts different kinds of pedagogies to meet the students coming from indigenous communities. There are different specializations such as communications, indigenous rights, languages, health and sustainability, and students pick up one or several of these training paths after completing a set of core courses. Though the UVI can admit students from other social groups, more than half of the students who study there are from the indigenous population. There is also a higher representation of the local indigenous group in each of these regional campuses⁷. The limited use of intercultural university by the mainstream population is not surprising due to the focus of this university; also, probably, the limited availability; and the tradition of using other universities by the mainstream population. Sixty percent of students in the UVI are females and in places where there is no major legal discrimination against girls in school education (although societal discrimination against women and girls persists), one may see a higher percentage of them in undergraduate programs especially in non-professional courses, as boys may opt for employment, locally or with migration.

The UVI interacts closely with the different organizations and stakeholders representing the indigenous population in their regions of origin. There are formal structures by which these stakeholders’ views are taken into account in the curriculum and other matters of the university⁸. Bi-lingual or multi-lingual teaching is practised, and the language of the local indigenous group is given adequate space. However, Dietz and Cortes (2011) report that the teaching takes place mainly in Spanish and that only some classes are conducted in the indigenous languages of the region, which depends on the availability of qualified teaching staff who are the native speakers of these languages. Though the main mode of teaching is face-to-face, distance or e-learning is also used for certain courses. There are also processes in place to shape the research agenda of the university through consultations with the local community. The presence of students from multiple indigenous groups in the university is thought to be useful in facilitating interactions and bridging connections between them. The students also take up field practice as part of their education, and work on issues that are of direct interest to the indigenous communities of the locality.

Intercultural universities are expected to provide culturally-relevant education not only for the professional development of people from indigenous or marginalized groups but also for the development of their areas/regions. The admission of students to the UVI is not solely based on academic merit. There are other criteria including the motivation of the student to address the problems of indigenous people and the acceptance of the student by indigenous populations or mobilization based on the services that the student is already providing within the community.

There are two types of academics or teachers in the UVI. Though some of the teaching staff are selected on the basis of their qualifications in the discipline, some others are taken for their roots in the region. A set of students who have passed out of the program in the initial years are currently working as the teaching staff. Though they are yet to demonstrate their proficiency in higher levels of education or research, their presence has enhanced the connectedness of the academics of the UVI with the region and indigenous people as well as the use of the local indigenous language on campus and in the classroom.

To those academics who are trained in conventional disciplines and oriented to the needs of conventional universities, the objective and working environment of the UVI may pose a serious challenge. There are faculty who are trained in archaeology, anthropology, geography, pedagogy, agronomy or in arts and culture, in general, they see the teaching in UVI as an extension of their field experience. They also narrate⁹ ways by which they try to connect their disciplinary knowledge with the reality of the students. They see the need to reconstruct the academic knowledge based on the experience of these communities and hence, do not view the interaction with students and communities as a unidirectional transmission of knowledge.

There are indications that the UVI has contributed to the transformation of the indigenous communities in the region (Cortina, 2016). The presence of the university has clearly enhanced the communities’ access to higher education. There is also a connection between the research carried out by the students and the needs of the community. Mateos Cortés (2017) notes that there is an effort to combine research and teaching at the UVI (at the undergraduate level) which is not that common in conventional universities in Mexico. According to her, there is no sharp divide, but a close interaction between the theoretical learning in class-room and the field-practice of students in this university.

It seems¹⁰ that the teachers of the UVI have a greater willingness and readiness to transform themselves in order to meet the needs of this special university. Some of them with urban roots and education make the effort to live in remote areas as part of this program of higher education. There is a greater empathy with the challenges faced by the students from indigenous groups, and they see meaning in the provision of higher education to such students. They do not complain about the intellectual or assimilation capacity of these students and come up, instead, with innovative strategies to see that teaching and learning happen in languages and forms that are comfortable to the students. Multiple efforts are being made to ensure that the experience of the students and communities reflects and feeds back into the classroom processes.

4. Challenges faced by intercultural universities

Intercultural universities face several challenges to realize their goals, and some of these are documented in literature. For example, UVI continues to be small even if we consider all four campuses. Only 700 students have passed out between 2009 and 2016. Though the dropout rate is high, it is lower than that of the conventional universities of Mexico (Mateos Cortés, 2017). Hence, its intake of students could be much lower than what may be needed to make a notable impact on the educational needs of the indigenous communities.

These universities are expected to have a research agenda that `should be inductively developed by students and teachers starting from local and regional problems’, and, `which are relevant to the regions and closely linked to the local actors’18. There are problems in integrating this research with the teaching in universities. Moreover, there is a gap between the teachers in the university who are immersed completely in classroom teaching and the `external community expert’ who is frequently reduced to an out-of-class ‘information source’ for students19. Most often, the teachers of the university, conduct community-related research by selecting themes based on personal professional interests and on past disciplinary training (anthropology, agronomy, and so on) rather than from the collective or societal needs of the respective indigenous region. The teaching of methods and skills required for the `intercultural professional’ are taught by those instructors who may not have the actual experience of using such methods/skills.

As noted earlier, a major part of the teaching still takes places in Spanish (Dietz and Mateos Cortés, 2011) though the majority of students speak one or the other indigenous languages. This is due to the inadequacy of enough academically trained teachers who are proficient in indigenous languages. Another shortcoming is the lack of enough and appropriate learning material on the knowledge and experience of indigenous communities in these languages. There could be a demand for Spanish teaching among indigenous students, too, if they see this as another mode of higher education.

Though the training provided at UVI can be used for self-employment such as the creation and management of small enterprises or organizations¹¹ (and that is the case with a segment of students), there is also unemployment of their graduates¹². Moreover, most of the jobs available to the graduates are in, what can be called, unprotected or informal sector, without adequate social security benefits. Though the unemployment of university graduates is a general problem in Mexico, according to Mateos Cortés (2017), this problem is aggravated among the graduates of the UVI due to the poorer quality of pre-university education, stigma associated with the use of indigenous languages, lack of urban work experience, and also the lack of knowledge among society at large about the courses taught in intercultural university.

Most positions of teachers in the UVI are not comparable to those in conventional universities. Some of them do not have comparable remunerations, and this can have a demotivating effect. Better remunerations and facilities (like healthcare) in conventional universities encourage some of the teachers of the UVI to migrate to those. Though they have developed innovative practices for the special purpose of the university, much more effort needs to be made to document these practices, so that these can be reflected upon and be made available to others. Innovative teaching, research and outreach experiences are not widely shared with the rest of the University of Veracruz colleagues and students. There has to be a greater effort to make UVI more visible so that there is a stronger political will and social acceptance for such universities.

The university has a greater focus on language and cultural practices of the communities. There are major efforts to provide education in indigenous languages like Náhuatl. However, there seems to be a certain reluctance in making changes in their practices (for example, family planning) or to empower these groups politically. Though there are certain efforts to use disciplines like agronomy, to improve the livelihood practices of indigenous groups, it seems that there is a general reluctance on the part of the university to get into issues of developmental, political or social change. This could be driven by the anthropological approach of UVI. It may be better to have a reflective assimilation of the language and valuable practices of these communities, on the one hand, and the assimilation of newer and desirable practices (such as family planning, reduction of infant mortality and gender discrimination), on the other. There may be a need for higher attention on the human and sustainable development of these communities, even for their cultural identity to persist and flourish. Current study programs such as the mentioned B.A. in Intercultural Management for Development still reflect the strong influence of UVI’s founding generations, many of whom are anthropologists, linguists and/or pedagogues, while natural and environmental sciences, agronomy, law and health sciences are still under-represented in the UVI faculty.

The UVI depends on limited public resources, and that puts a limit on the programs and the number of students it can admit. Most students come from very poor backgrounds and hence, they cannot access this higher education even if it is free due to the cost of living near the campuses, and the university is yet to provide residential facilities. In the political allocation of public resources, UVI cannot compete with conventional universities unless there is a strong political reason to improve the education for indigenous groups. Hence, one can argue that, though there is a certain political willingness to support this form of higher education, it is not adequate to allocate enough resources to make a notable impact. There can be a stronger structural connection between the indigenous groups and this university for this purpose.

5. Intercultural Universities: Lessons for India

Intercultural universities provide important lessons to a country like India which has nearly 10% of its population as Scheduled Tribes (STs), and they are structurally similar to the indigenous groups in Latin America and elsewhere. These communities face the twin challenges of not doing well on the yardsticks of formal education, and such education not enabling them to reflect on and be rooted in their social and cultural context. Hence, their integration into mainstream society makes them marginal and vulnerable. The experience of intercultural universities provides useful insights into the planning of an appropriate education for this group. Most important point is that it is theoretically possible to have an intercultural education – one that enables them to reflect on their socio-cultural conditions and understand and deal with others, on the one hand, and that which empowers them to address their specific issues in this fast-changing and integrated world, on the other. The experience of UVI does give hope that the education for STs in India need not necessarily be the one that integrates them into the mainstream society at its lower tiers. However, the experience of UVI indicates that there are many practical challenges to realize this theoretical possibility.

The concept of intercultural universities may not be adequate for India which faces challenges in providing appropriate education to several different social groups and not just the STs. There are other groups, such as the Scheduled Castes (STs), whose main challenge is not the socio-cultural distance from the mainstream society, but the persistence of vulnerabilities due to the historical oppression by social elites. A majority of them continue to be economically poor, too. Sections of the so-called, Other Backward Castes (OBCs) too encounter a similar situation. There are other groups including certain religious minorities, people living in remote parts, and so on.

There are girls in India belonging to various caste groups who have been subjected to severe discrimination in education. There are also social norms that dissuade women from taking up paid employment and thereby, increase their vulnerability. Hence, there is a need to address the challenges encountered by different marginalized groups at a university for India to address the issues of deprivation, underdevelopment and inequality. Moreover, all students in the university (except those from underprivileged groups) have to be oriented to the need, and capacitated with appropriate skills, to address these social challenges. Research and generation of knowledge in the university also need to be oriented to meet these social purposes.

6. Azim Premji University and Universidad Veracruzana Intercultural

The Azim Premji University (APU) and UVI can learn from each other. The former has a higher emphasis on bringing about a positive change in the educational or development situation of the less-privileged communities in India, and a detailed discussion of its priorities and challenges are noted here. The curriculum of the university has an emphasis on social structure, economic interactions and political processes. Students spend nearly four months during the two-year-long program in the field either interning with a non-governmental organization or carrying out field research. There are also efforts to make the classroom teaching connected with the ground realities and efforts to bring about social change through initiatives such as University Practice Connect. The university has also launched a major initiative to translate learning materials for post-graduate programs (which are in English) into Indian languages. It is also planning to start degree programs in the medium of Indian languages (which is not common in India where the formal medium of higher education is English, whereas the informal transaction in many colleges located in non-metropolitan areas could be in one or other Indian languages).

One major challenge that is faced by APU is the lack of adequate orientation of the faculty who are trained in conventional universities to the needs of a university with a social purpose. It appears that the academics at the UVI have a higher level of openness to the need for these universities, and to reconstruct their disciplinary knowledge and transform themselves for this purpose. However, the number of faculty in UVI who are well-trained from conventional universities is not high, and some of them are students who have passed out of the UVI. On the other hand, APU has drawn a major part of its faculty from the pool of conventional academics, and their (lack of adequate) orientation to the specific social purpose could be an issue. This may not be a mere attitudinal issue and it may have roots in the way social science knowledge is perceived and constructed in India. There is not enough connection between the theoretical learning in the classroom and the field or practical experience gained by students. The UVI performs better on these terms.

However, UVI faces the scarcity of resources and faculty and hence, cannot accommodate more students, whereas these are not serious constraints for APU. Another advantage for the APU is the fact that almost all students who seek employment can be placed in one or other non-governmental organization (NGOs or those involved in corporate social responsibility). Though the salaries are not high, these could be comparable to the entry-level salaries of other professionals such as software engineers in India. In terms of social security provisions, these jobs are comparable to the private companies in the formal sector in India. It seems that there are not enough employment opportunities for graduates coming out of UVI. This is also related to the fact that NGOs in rural Mexico do not employ a big proportion of university graduates. The local labour markets are still very precarious, and formal and stable employments are still in the governmental sector.

Furthermore, most students come from a particular social group in UVI, indigenous peasant families, whereas there is a greater diversity of students in APU. The UVI, due to its specific mandate, could put in place an admission process so that it can admit students on the basis of wider social criteria in order to expand and to socially, culturally and linguistically diversify its student composition. However, the competition to get into APU and the required screening process may lead to a situation whereby many students from poorer and marginalized social groups may not get admission there. The reorientation of the admission process so that the potential change-makers from marginalized groups get the benefit of education at APU continues to be a major challenge.

In both contexts, in India as well as in Mexico, new types of higher education institutions are emerging and developing which reach out for those populations of our contemporary societies which have been historically excluded and marginalized. New strategies of admission, the recognition of diversity and the design of intercultural education programs are steps towards a more democratic and inclusive university system. These new institutions need to closely network not only with each other but with conventional universities too – the recognition of diversity and inclusion cannot be limited to particular groups, as they attain and affect our societies, their internal cohesion and their inter-group attitudes and treatments.

AUTHORS

V Santhakumar, Professor, Azim Premji University

Gunther Dietz is Research Professor, Intercultural Studies at the University of Veracruz (Xalapa, Mexico). He teaches and conducts research on intercultural education, ethnicity and linguistic and cultural diversity in Mexico.

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