First modification:
The curriculum for Bolivian schools has been rejected by some teachers and sectors of parents who are dissatisfied with content on politics, a gender approach and primary sex education, which has turned this area into another scenario of the polarization that Bolivia is experiencing. country. The Government points out that it pursues the mandates of the Constitution, including “decolonization, depatriarchalization, intraculturalism, interculturalism, and multilingualism.”
The Bolivian teachers union federations have rejected with marches in several cities the curriculum put into effect by the Ministry of Education because they affirm that it is a plan that “invisibles” in the area of social studies everything that happened during the political crisis of November of 2019, which the Government considers a “coup” against Evo Morales, leaving aside other versions of those events that continue to polarize the country.
The teacher Isabel Cruz, who works at the Panama school and is a leader of the Federation of Teachers of La Paz, affirms that she does not feel represented by the “narrative of the coup d’état”, nor by the one that speaks of “electoral fraud”. that disseminates the opposition, but considers that in 2019 there was a popular rebellion against the Morales government because people demanded attention to unmet needs.
In this regard, the coordinator of the Pedagogical Research Institute of the Ministry of Education, Fernando Carrión, said that the books will show the plurality of visions because there is talk of “a constitutional rupture” and they are not considered to be “finished” facts, but open to research and reflection.
Likewise, Cruz maintained that he is against the plan because it also “improvises” the assignment of scientific subjects such as robotics, which cannot be applied in state schools due to material shortages and the lack of specialized teaching staff for those areas.
The issue of the gender approach in the classroom
In addition to the teachers’ unions, groups of parents have also taken to the streets to protest against the gender approach and sexual education since primary school.
Xavier Iturralde, from a group of parents, said that they are concerned about “the hypersexualization of our children with the issue of gender ideology.”
“It cannot be that children from four to six years old begin to take subjects with sexuality themes. We firmly believe that children have to play, they have to learn, they don’t have to talk about sexuality at that age,” she said.
Fernando Carrión affirmed that the new contents have been updated after ten years and considered that those who oppose them represent “radical” sectors that protest because their position is not in the curriculum, which, in his opinion, reflects a balance.
The official pointed out that the gender approach in the curriculum responds to the claim of rights for equality and diversity and will be “respectful” of the age of the children.
According to Carrión, those who question the curriculum in the background also criticize the Constitution in force since 2009, which proclaims as its objective a society with “decolonization, depatriarchalization, intraculturalism, interculturalism, multilingualism.”
Teachers, parents and the Government have recognized that education is not neutral and entails an ideology, which has been reflected in the political controversies and protests that the application of new educational content at the beginning of the school year has aroused.
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