Multiculturalism and Teacher Training in Intercultural Bilingual Education

The objective of this study is to understand the validity of the notion of multiculturalism, and its transformative possibilities for society, through the implementation of Bilingual Intercultural Education in the ColtaGuamote District during the 2022-2023 school year. The strategy followed consists of describing multiculturalism as a process of reconstruction of the epistemological bases of society, where bilingual education must be a tool. From this, the role of the Ministry as a regulatory entity of Intercultural Bilingual Education (EIB) in the Sierra region is observed and it is described if such process shows transformative capabilities in culture. The interviews and ethnographic field diaries showed that: a) Pedagogical aspects intervened in the impossibility of achieving cultural impact objectives, since the training programs, during the period 2022-2023, had little impact on bilingual intercultural education; from the fact that this component was not considered in the educational offer, much less did it could have an impact on the community notion of multiculturalism. b) Technical aspects intervened in this gap, such as the preponderance of the virtual modality, based on the pandemic experience, which distanced objectives that were required such as integration into traditional and ancestral community life. c) Attitudinal aspects were found among bilingual intercultural teachers in reference to the low bureaucratic motivation and the persistent perception of cultural failure, associated with the dropout of students and teachers. It is concluded that the training of the Ministry of Education during this period was ineffective, for technical-pedagogical, technological and attitudinal reasons. It is recommended to recover a more radical and constitutional notion of multiculturalism that prevents bureaucratic and personal variables from destroying the public effort in this regard.