More than 600 students from indigenous, Afro-descendant, and campesino communities across Colombia have arrived at the EcoCampus of the Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana (UPB) in Medellín for the in-person phase of the Licenciatura en Etnoeducación, the university’s ethnoeducation teaching degree.

The residency is run in partnership with the Instituto Misionero de Antropología (IMA). Students come from communities including the Awá, Embera, Kogui, Tikuna, and Wayuu peoples. UPB said more than 26 languages are represented among the participants, who take part in projects that focus on teaching their languages, traditions, cultural practices, and their communities’ own systems of governance.

“Through this degree program, the Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana generates a real impact in the territories. We are proud to offer professional training to indigenous, Afro-descendant, and campesino teachers who, because of the geographic conditions of their communities, face greater barriers to accessing higher education.” — Olga Lucía Arbeláez Rojas, coordinator of the Licenciatura en Etnoeducación, Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana

Participants come from departments including Cauca, Putumayo, Amazonas, Vichada, Guainía, Chocó, Sucre, Córdoba, and Antioquia, along with students from Venezuela and Kenya.

UPB is marking 53 years of the Licenciatura en Etnoeducación, which it describes as a program that has brought higher education to communities far from major urban centers and now counts more than 5,000 graduates.

The model combines academic work carried out in the students’ home territories with intensive in-person sessions in Medellín. Each semester, students travel to the UPB EcoCampus to strengthen skills, share experiences, and consolidate knowledge they later apply in their communities.

“Through this degree program, the Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana generates a real impact in the territories. We are proud to offer professional training to indigenous, Afro-descendant, and campesino teachers who, because of the geographic conditions of their communities, face greater barriers to accessing higher education,” said Olga Lucía Arbeláez Rojas, coordinator of the program.

The degree integrates anthropology, linguistics, pedagogy, and the social sciences, training students to work as promoters of ethnodevelopment and community-led change in their own regions.

According to UPB, graduates of the program work as teachers, cultural managers, farmers, and directors of community organizations, and some serve as mayors, councilmembers, and secretaries of education in different regions of the country.

More information about the program is available on UPB’s ethnoeducation page.