ANDAHUAYLILLAS, Peru — Community educators travelling up to two hours to reach rural learners are helping Quechua-speaking women in Cusco gain literacy, formal certificates and a stronger voice in local decisions.
UNESCO profiled the Municipal Community School of Andahuaylillas on 4 September ahead of International Literacy Day. The programme connects reading, writing and mathematics with agriculture, animal husbandry, family health, sexual education, entrepreneurship, rights and community leadership.
Its design begins with a corrective principle: women arriving without formal schooling are not arriving without knowledge. They already understand crops, livestock, family care, local organisation and Quechua culture. Lessons build on those skills instead of treating them as obstacles to be replaced.
Access is also reorganised around women’s time. Educators travel to remote communities and teach individuals or small groups at dawn or after agricultural and care work. Without that approach, some participants would face journeys of one or two hours to the nearest education centre.
UNESCO says the school has enabled 200 women to become literate and at least 100 to complete basic education. Participants receive official certificates through the relevant Local Educational Management Unit. Some have continued into livestock training, social-programme work, small businesses and district or provincial organisations.
Martina Valencia’s experience captures the connection between education and authority. UNESCO reported that her improved record-keeping supported guinea-pig farming and that she was elected a community leader—the first woman to hold such responsibility in Ttiomayo.
The figures remain programme-reported outcomes rather than an independent impact evaluation. Future assessment should publish enrolment, completion and continuation data by age and community, alongside information about cost, educator workload and whether gains persist.
Peru’s National Institute of Statistics and Informatics estimates that about 1.2 million people aged 15 or older remain unable to read and write, down from 1.5 million a decade earlier. Rural, Indigenous and women learners remain disproportionately excluded.
That makes replication more demanding than copying a curriculum. Municipalities need trained bilingual educators, recognised certification and budgets that account for travel. Scheduling must remain flexible enough for people whose unpaid work has long kept them outside classrooms.
Andahuaylillas shows that adult education can produce more than a signature on a form. When literacy respects language and existing knowledge, it can improve livelihoods and redistribute who is able to speak, document a claim and lead.
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