High in the Peruvian Andes, four words from the Quechua language guide how a university in Cusco teaches its students: yachay, munay, llank'ay and ayni.
Ronal Raúl Florez Díaz of the Universidad Andina del Cusco looked at how these old Andean values shape student life today. Yachay means knowing and learning. Munay means caring and loving. Llank'ay means working. Ayni means give and take: people help each other, and the help comes back around.
The four words come from an ancestral view of the world. Brought into university life, the author writes, they strengthen students' sense of who they are, encourage them to learn together and act ethically, and connect science with traditional knowledge.
For his study, Florez Díaz reviewed earlier research and articles. His main finding: the Andean values live in everyday practice. They show up in how students work together, how academic work is organized and how people relate to one another.
As a result, he concludes, students build skills they can use anywhere: teamwork, making decisions together and sharing responsibility for what they learn.
Sources
Florez Díaz, R. R. (2025). Valores andinos, Yachay, Munay, Llank'ay y Ayni como paradigmas de formación académica en la Universidad Andina del Cusco. Yachay: Revista Científico Cultural. https://doi.org/10.36881/yachay.v14i1.1118
Further reading
Porter, M. K., et al. (2001). Ayni in the global village: Building relationships of reciprocity through international service-learning. Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning.