HIGHER EDUCATION AND INDIGENOUS PEOPLES: EPISTEMIC CHALLENGES AND AFFIRMATIVE POLICIES AT THE FEDERAL INSTITUTE OF MATO GROSSO

Abstract

This article critically analyzes Indigenous students' access, retention, and success in higher education, focusing on the Federal Institute of Mato Grosso (IFMT). Using a qualitative approach, grounded in critical pedagogy and decolonial epistemologies, the study discusses the limits of affirmative action and proposes paths for building an intercultural and anti-racist education. Considering that, in 2025, only twenty-nine self-identified Indigenous students were enrolled at IFMT—ten of whom were enrolled at the Juína Campus—out of a total of over twenty thousand students in a state with 58,231 Indigenous students, the article denounces the underrepresentation of Indigenous people in higher education offered by the Federal Institute of Mato Grosso. Combining authors such as Paulo Freire, Walter Mignolo, Sonia Nieto, Catherine Walsh, Ailton Krenak, Gloria Anzaldúa, and Aníbal Quijano, the text proposes a critical reflection on the coloniality of knowledge and the urgency of more effective and culturally sensitive public policies in this institution, which is strategically located for serving the Indigenous population of Mato Grosso.