Higher education for indigenous teachers in Acre

From dream to reality

Abstract

This study focuses on the Indigenous Licentiate Course at the Federal University of Acre - UFAC. It aims to reflect on the importance, role and challenges of higher education for indigenous people in the most western region of Brazil. The study has a qualitative character, with a dialectical approach method and historical procedure. The gathering of documentary information took place from the first and second Political Pedagogical Project. The documentary listing and its analysis aimed to obtain necessary information about its institutionalization in the light of the legislation on Indigenous School Education. In parallel, we conducted open interviews in which we focused on the main points that we intended to investigate. They were held at different times and places, both in the face-to-face phase and with the indigenous communities visited during the intermediate phase. As a result, we verified that the course represents an experience and the possibility of expanding the capacity for organizing education and teaching, as well as guaranteeing a process of valuing traditional culture, through the construction of a curriculum based on the interlocution between knowledge. and the needs of those communities. We conclude that, based on historical and controversial elements about the UFAC Indigenous Degree, even though we consider the difficulties and challenges, it constitutes the realization of a dream for indigenous teachers in the region, being the only and specific door of access to public higher education in the state, which offers training to indigenous teachers from Acre, as well as making it possible to get to know more deeply the processes experienced by the various subjects involved in the daily activities of this course.

Key words: Formation; Teachers; Indigenous people; Acre.