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An overview of the dimensions of availability
and accessibility of the right to education from
2014 to 2024
Una radiografía a las dimensiones de disponibilidad y
accesibilidad del derecho a la educación desde el 2014 al
2024
Alex Lucio-Paredes
Universidad Central del Ecuador, Quito-Ecuador
Facultad de Filosofía, Letras y Ciencias de la Educación, Carrera de Educción Básica
aolucio@uce.edu.ec
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1033-2688
Nadia Lucio-Paredes
Ministerio de Educación, Quito-Ecuador
Unidad Educativa Consejo Provincial de Pichincha
nadia.lucio@educacion.gob.ec
https://orcid.org/0009-0002-7084-1828
(Received on: 19/02/2025; Accepted on: 27/03/2025; Final version received on: 04/07/2025)
Suggested citation: Lucio-Paredes, A. & Lucio-Paredes, N. (2025). An overview of the
dimensions of availability and accessibility of the right to education from 2014 to 2024.
Revista Cátedra, 8(2), 38-54.
Abstract
One of the State's obligations is to effectively guarantee the right to education. This requires
state services through goods and services—both private and non-public. However, each
good or service satisfies a specific dimension of education. The guiding question of this
study is: Does the State satisfactorily guarantee the availability and accessibility of
education? This study is important because it allows us to uncover the status of educational
availability and accessibility through the analysis of the number of institutions and the gross
enrollment ratio from the 2013-2014 academic period to the 2023-2024 academic year. The
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work adopts a mixed approach; the research design was the nested or embedded
concurrent dominant model because quantitative and qualitative data were collected
simultaneously. The paper concludes by stating that the State does not guarantee the right
to education in the availability dimension because the number of educational institutions
varies negatively between the years studied. In the 2013-2014 school year, there were
24,573 institutions, while in the 2023-2024 school year, there was a reduction equivalent
to 34% of the total number of educational establishments present in 2013-2014. In the
accessibility dimension, the State also fails to guarantee the right to education because the
enrollment rate decreased considerably at two points in time. In the 2015-2016 school year,
there was a reduction of 100,636 students. Then, in the 2020-2021 school year, there was a
decrease of 92,253 students. At both points in time, accessibility to the educational system
was affected for material, economic, and discrimination reasons.
Keywords
Accessibility, availability, education, educational institutions, educational enrollment.
Resumen
Un deber del Estado es garantizar efectivamente el derecho a la educación. Para esto se
requiere de prestaciones estatales a través de bienes y servicios -propios e impropios-. Sin
embargo, cada bien o servicio satisface una dimensión especifica de la educación. La
pregunta que guía este estudio es, ¿el Estado garantiza satisfactoriamente la disponibilidad
y la accesibilidad de la educación? El estudio es importante porque nos permite develar la
situación de la disponibilidad y accesibilidad de la educación a través del análisis del
número de instituciones y la tasa bruta de matrícula desde el periodo académico 2013-2014
hasta el 2023-2024. El trabajo tiene un enfoque mixto; el diseño de la investigación fue el
anidado o incrustado concurrente de modelo dominante porque se recolectó
simultáneamente datos cuantitativos y cualitativos. El trabajo finaliza exponiendo que el
Estado no garantiza el derecho a la educación en la dimensión de disponibilidad porque el
número de instituciones educativas varia negativamente entre los años estudiados. En el
2013-2014 hay 24573 instituciones, mientras que, al 2023-2024 existe una reducción
equivalente al 34 % del total de establecimientos educativos presentes en el 2013-2014. En
la dimensión de accesibilidad el Estado tampoco garantiza el derecho a la educación porque
la tasa de matrícula disminuye considerablemente en dos momentos. En el periodo lectivo
2015-2016 existe una reducción de 100636 estudiantes. Luego, en el periodo 2020-2021
existe una disminución de 92253 estudiantes. En ambos momentos la accesibilidad al
sistema educativo se afecta por motivos materiales, económicos y, de discriminación.
Palabras clave
Accesibilidad, disponibilidad, educación, instituciones educativas, matrícula educativa.
1. Introduction
The explanation for the importance of guaranteeing the right to education is not unique.
However, both human capital theories and signaling theories agree in attributing to
education the ability to prepare students for their entry into the workforce and improve
their economic well-being (Castellar-Uribe, 2006; Kido-Cruz and Kido-Cruz, 2015). Other
positions, critical of the aforementioned, state that "education should not only assist in the
development of basic skills, but also in the development of a child's personality" (Ruiz-
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Muñoz, 2014, p. 3). We observe that the explanation of the purpose of education depends
on the theoretical perspective used for the analysis.
Although there are theoretical debates about its purposes, there is broad consensus on the
fundamental importance of education for the development of societies. In fact, its relevance
is such that it was enshrined as a human right in the 1948 UN Universal Declaration. This
recognition was furthered years later by the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural
Rights, which in its General Comment No. 13 defined its four essential characteristics:
availability, accessibility, acceptability, and adaptability. This study will analyze the
dimensions of availability and accessibility of the right to education through educational
indicators that reflect the number of educational institutions and the gross enrollment rate
of the National Education System in public, municipal, fiscomisional, and private settings.
This research moves away from a fragmented view of the characteristics of education and
invites us to understand that there is an interrelationship between the characteristics of the
right to education. In this regard, some specialized literature has also distinguished between
educational indicators and indicators of the right to education. Consequently, this paper
attempts to overcome this limitation by establishing the relationship between educational
indicators and dimensions of the right, considering that educational indicators "allow us to
demonstrate the extent to which the State fulfills its obligations to respect, protect, and
promote the right to education" (Pérez, 2015, p. 92). In this sense, the educational indicator
that shows the number of institutions allows us to understand the right in its dimension of
availability; while the educational indicator of the gross enrollment rate allows us to
approach the dimension of accessibility.
This paper analyzes the percentages of educational institutions and the gross enrollment
rate of the National Education System from the 2013-2014 school year to the 2023-2024
school year to evaluate compliance with state obligations to guarantee the effectiveness of
the right to education in the dimensions of availability and accessibility. The paper begins
with the question: Does the State satisfactorily guarantee the availability and accessibility
of education? The purpose of this study is to describe the state of the right to education in
terms of availability and accessibility by analyzing the number of educational institutions
and the gross enrollment rate in the National Education System between the 2013-2014 and
2023-2024 school years.
The article consists of six sections. The first section provides an introduction, and the second
presents a literature review. The third section presents the methodology, while the fourth
section presents the results and a discussion. The fifth section presents the study's
conclusions.
2. Literature review
2.1 Approximation and distinction of human rights
For Marín, human dignity is the fundamental value of human rights. However, the definition
and characterization of the concept of human dignity is difficult to address because it is a
diffuse notion that requires multiple disciplines for its explanation. Although the notion of
dignity emerged during the transition from the Middle Ages to the modern age and was
reinforced by the natural law theory of law, the positivization of human rights is the work
of international intergovernmental organizations in the exercise of the renewed post-war
international law (Marín, 2007, p. 3).
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Reviewing some of the prominent doctrine, we can affirm that human rights are
"supranational rights that apply and are validated for all without distinction, and they are
above any particular legal system" (Rodríguez and García, 2019, p. 1602). Human rights,
unlike constitutional rights, “have universal validity; they are attributed equally to all
people in the world. To this extent, they take priority over positive law, as they represent a
measure of the latter's legitimacy” (Borowski, 2003, p. 31).
Since 1948, a comprehensive international legal framework has been developed to
recognize, protect, and promote the right to education (Right to Education Initiative, 2015).
The cornerstone of this framework is the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which was
not only the first instrument to recognize education as a right but also established it as a
fundamental means for respecting other human rights. This framework was subsequently
strengthened by the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights,
adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1966. To monitor the implementation of this
Covenant, the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights was established in 1985.
Its establishment was formalized by Resolution 1985/17 of the United Nations Economic
and Social Council (ECOSOC).
In 1999, the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights adopted General Comment
No. 13. General Comment No. 13 states that the right to education in all its forms and levels
must have four characteristics or dimensions. The Royal Spanish Academy (RAE) defines a
characteristic as "a quality that gives character or serves to distinguish someone or
something from their peers" (RAE, 2014). However, the characteristics that the Committee
assigns to education should not be considered the only qualities that exclude others, but
rather as reference frameworks for States parties to the Covenant to more effectively fulfill
their obligations regarding the right to education. Taking General Comment No. 13 as a
reference, the characteristics or dimensions of the right to education are availability,
accessibility, acceptability, and adaptability. 2.2 Structure of the Right to Education
Our Constitution places education in the catalog of rights to good living. Drawing a parallel
with other forms of classification, the rights to good living are equivalent to second-
generation rights, also classified as Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (ESCR) or rights to
something. Professor Robert Alexy explains the structure of rights to something. In this
regard, the author argues that "the right to something can be conceived as a triadic
relationship whose first member is the bearer or holder of the right (a), its second member
is the recipient of the right (b), and its third member is the object of the right (G)" (1993, p.
187).
The obligation of the right to something will always consist of an action on the part of the
recipient. This allows us to classify rights to something into rights to negative actions and
rights to positive actions. Within the rights to positive actions, we specifically find rights to
benefits (Alexy, 1993, p. 196). The right to education is guaranteed through positive and
negative actions; however, in this paper, we will only address the positive actions that the
State must take to ensure the availability and accessibility of the right to education.
Following the proposed structure, the holder of the right to education is the human being.
The recipient is the State, primarily through the Ministry of Education, but not exclusively.
The obligation consists of the positive action inherent in the provision of public goods and
services to guarantee coverage, access, and other obligations that are not the subject of this
paper.
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2.2 Structure of the Right to Education.
Our Constitution places education in the catalog of rights to good living. Drawing a parallel
with other forms of classification, the rights to good living are equivalent to second-
generation rights, also classified as Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (ESCR) or rights to
something. Professor Robert Alexy explains the structure of rights to something. In this
regard, the author argues that "the right to something can be conceived as a triadic
relationship whose first member is the bearer or holder of the right (a), its second member
is the recipient of the right (b), and its third member is the object of the right (G)" (1993, p.
187).
The obligation of the right to something will always consist of an action on the part of the
recipient. This allows us to classify rights to something into rights to negative actions and
rights to positive actions. Within the rights to positive actions, we specifically find rights to
benefits (Alexy, 1993, p. 196). The right to education is guaranteed through positive and
negative actions; however, in this paper, we will only address the positive actions that the
State must take to ensure the availability and accessibility of the right to education.
Following the proposed structure, the holder of the right to education is the human being.
The recipient is the State, primarily through the Ministry of Education, but not exclusively.
The obligation consists of the positive action inherent in the provision of public goods and
services to guarantee coverage, access, and other obligations that are not the subject of this
paper.
2.3 National Education System
The 2008 Ecuadorian Constitution establishes that the National Education System (SNE) is
composed of educational levels, modalities, and supports, as well as the institutions,
policies, plans, programs, services, resources, and actors of the educational process (Art.
344). An educational modality refers to "the specific way of offering an educational service
in relation to administrative procedures, learning strategies, and teaching aids" (Barroso,
2006, p. 6). The SNE modalities are formal education and non-formal education. Formal
education is classified into three levels. The levels that comprise formal education are early
childhood education, basic general education, and high school. The school enrollment age
for the first level starts at 3 years old and ends at 5 years old. The theoretical enrollment
age for basic education starts at 5 years old and ends at 14 years old. For high school,
however, the schooling age begins at 15 and ends at 17 years of age. Comparing our
classification of educational levels with the reference framework developed by the United
Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in its International
Standard Classification of Education (ISCED 2011), the initial level corresponds to ISCED
Level 0 – Early Childhood Education; the basic education level corresponds to ISCED Level
1 – Primary Education and ISCED Level 2 – Lower Secondary Education; while high school
corresponds to ISCED Level 3 – Upper Secondary Education (UNESCO Institute for Statistics
(UIS), 2013, pp. 27–61).
Each level can be present in different educational levels. For Silva-Beltrán et al. (2005),
educational level,
It summarizes all the resources allocated by the country to the
maintenance of educational services and can be divided into two sources:
public resources administered by the government and those directly
contributed by individuals to pay for their children's schooling (p. 240).
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In Ecuador, there are four pillars that define the legal nature of an institution, which may be
a public, municipal, fiscomisional, or private educational establishment. Beyond the legal
nature of the educational institution, the LOEI mandates that no establishment shall be for-
profit. However, this provision is far from being fulfilled and is therefore an open discussion
that leads us to the commercialization of education and its privatization, but which is not
the subject of this work.
2.4 State duties and the right to education
From a normative perspective, Ecuador is a constitutional state with duties, not rights
(Judgment No. 282-13-JP/19, 2019). The state's duties can be "positive or negative
obligations" (Ferrajoli, 2013, p. 558). The Ecuadorian state's highest duty is to "guarantee,
without any discrimination, the effective enjoyment of the rights established in the
Constitution and in international instruments, particularly education" (Constitution of the
Republic of Ecuador, 2008, Art. 3, No. 1). The reasons that give meaning to the Constitution's
prescriptions for the state are rooted in philosophical and political foundations. For
Professor Cortés, the constitutional state rests on the theses of social liberalism, which is
characterized by endowing the state with the function of "protecting the vital needs of
people through their recognition as fundamental human rights and by establishing a system
of guarantees that includes prohibitions of harm (negative) and obligations to provide
services (positive)" (2012, p. 191). In contrast, for Ramiro Ávila, the foundation of the
constitutional state is distributive egalitarianism, which is characterized by its emphasis on
a collective and supportive human being, entitled to multiple rights necessary for individual
and social life, particularly economic and social rights (2025, p. 6). Both positions are
complementary. They recognize that the role of the constitutional state is to guarantee
rights; however, to achieve this goal, the state has a set of positive obligations that it must
fulfill.
Professor Luigi Ferrajoli (2013), based on a formal legal systematization, indicates that all
rights are expectations, although not all expectations contemplate the same correlations
and obligations. For example, following the liberal classification of rights, freedom rights
such as privacy entail negative expectations of non-injury, consisting of no impediment or
disturbance to the exercise of the right. Meanwhile, economic, social, and cultural rights
such as education entail positive expectations of provision, consisting of the action of the
obligated party to guarantee the right (pp. 144-145). However, each right requires, to a
different extent, both negative and positive expectations for its fulfillment.
For the right to education to be effective, the State must develop a complex system of
negative and positive guarantees. Positive guarantees are "the obligations corresponding to
positive expectations" (Ferrajoli, 2006, p. 25). In this case, they are the actions that the State
must adopt to make the right to education effective. But we must remember that guarantees
are not implemented in the abstract, but rather are materialized through public goods and
services, whether their own or improper.
According to our Constitution (2008), the State promotes and guarantees the right to
education through the National Education System and the Higher Education System (Art.
343 and 350). It is interesting how the constituent, when drafting the regulations relating
to the S.N.E. and S.E.S., appears to have done so under the conception of Niklas Luhmann's
systems theory, which understands society as a complex social system that, given its
complexity, requires subsystems, each of which "observes society from its own function"
(Urteaga, 2009, p. 308). If we analyze the purposes that the constituent attributed to each
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system, we can identify that it falls within Luhmann's conceptions of the educational system,
this function being the:
The transformation of individual psychic systems so that they are capable
of participating in any form of communication. It becomes necessary for
society when socialization fails to ensure appropriate behavior. The
peculiarity of the educational system, therefore, is that its effects
manifest themselves, unlike other functional subsystems, outside the
social system (Urteaga, 2009, p. 310).
The right to education at the initial, basic, and high school levels is guaranteed through the
goods and services offered by the National Education System. The purpose of this system is
to develop the individual and collective capacities and potential of the population. Finally,
the National Education System must be coordinated with the Higher Education System, the
Health System, the Economic and Social Inclusion System, and other systems.
The right to education, as a positive expectation of action, is effective through the provision
of goods and services. In this sense, the Constitution of the Republic of Ecuador (2008)
recognizes and guarantees to people "the right to access quality public and private goods
and services, with efficiency, effectiveness, and fair treatment, as well as to receive adequate
and truthful information about their content and characteristics" (Art. 66, No. 25).
According to the doctrine of Administrative Law, the concept of public service is defined as:
Any technical activity intended to satisfy, in a uniform and continuous
manner, a need of a general nature, subject to a mutable legal regime that
is exorbitant to ordinary law, either through public administration or
through individuals empowered to do so by the competent authority, for
the indiscriminate benefit of all persons (Fernández, 2010, p. 14).
If the service is provided directly by the State or by a private entity under delegation,
concession, or other legal entity, the service is called a public service. Conversely, if the
service is provided neither by the State nor by a private entity under delegation, but said
activity satisfies a general need, the service is called an improper public service. Based on
the proposed division, education will always be guaranteed through public services, even
more so since the Constitution of the Republic of Ecuador (2008) stipulates that education
"shall respond to the public interest and shall not be at the service of individual and
corporate interests" (Art. 26). However, with the advent of neoliberalism and the theory of
contestable markets, the notion of a public service mutated due to "voices that raised the
need to deregulate the providers of such services and subject them to the rules of a
competitive market" (Rozas and Hantke, 2013, p. 20).
In the country, neoliberal policies began to be implemented from 1981 until 2007. This
period was characterized by economic stabilization through monetary policy, fiscal policy,
and trade policy, and a drastic reduction in public investment. Since the country's fiscal
policy during this period was primarily oriented toward meeting international credit
obligations rather than financing public goods and services, the consequence was a drastic
reduction in state participation in social policy, resulting in political, economic, and social
instability.
Salgado (2008) reviews Ecuador's constitutional history and argues that "the idea of
convening a constituent assembly has always been present, especially when political and
institutional problems appear to have no other solution because the facts exceed the legal
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framework" (p. 205). Consequently, the constitutional process that began on April 15 with
the entry referendum was a space for discussion, confrontation, and agreement among
representatives of the various political forces and social movements of the time, who
expressed their views and interests in the Fundamental Law. In this regard, the 2008
Constitution, for example, recognizes and guarantees free education up to the third level,
creates the National Education System, establishes financing rules for said system, and
generally prescribes the obligations of the State to guarantee the right to education. The
Ecuadorian State, by constitutional mandate, has the ultimate duty to guarantee the right to
education, which is possible through the provision of public goods and services.
2.5 Dimensions of the right to education
From a prescriptive perspective, education as a right has a triple nature: it is simultaneously
a constitutional right, a fundamental right, and a human right. General Comment No. 13
established that the characteristics of the right to education are availability, accessibility,
acceptability, and adaptability. Availability implies that “there must be sufficient
educational institutions and programs available.” (Committee on Economic, Social and
Cultural Rights, 1999, p. 3). Other authors equate availability with affordability, defining it
as the obligation of States to “ensure that free and compulsory education is available for all
children of primary school age” (Tomasevski, 2008, p. 350). Using an overly simplistic
analogy, availability is also equivalent to the coverage of educational institutions provided
by the National Education System.
Accessibility means that “educational institutions and programs must be accessible to all,
without discrimination” (Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, 1999, p. 3).
No one should be left out of the education system. Accessibility guarantees entry to the
system without discrimination, and affirmative action policies promote access for people
belonging to historically excluded groups. However, Observation No. 13 itself has stated
that the dimension of full accessibility without restriction is applicable only up to secondary
education—following the national typology, full accessibility is up to high school. The
Constituent Assembly incorporated the accessibility component and enshrined it in the
Constitution of the Republic of Ecuador (2008), which provides that “Universal access,
permanence, mobility, and graduation shall be guaranteed without discrimination, and
compulsory education at the initial, basic, and high school levels or their equivalent” (Art.
28).
Accessibility involves “ensuring that everyone within a jurisdiction has the opportunity to
participate in educational processes without being discriminated against or excluded”
(Köster, 2016, p. 37). Ensuring accessibility entails overcoming the barriers that impede
entry into the National Education System. Accessibility consists of three subdimensions: 1)
non-discrimination; 2) material accessibility; 3) economic accessibility. The three
subdimensions are interrelated.
The subdimension of non-discrimination implies that entry into the National Education
System must be open to all, with emphasis on groups that have historically been
discriminated against. Therefore, no one can be prevented from accessing the Education
System due to a suspicious status. To eliminate factors that promote discrimination in
access, the State must act immediately; these actions are not implemented gradually nor are
they subject to the availability of government resources.
Material accessibility involves overcoming the geographical and technological barriers that
hinder entry into the System. For example, no one should be excluded from the National
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Education System (SNE) because they live in a rural area of the country or because they lack
internet service. Economic accessibility ensures that no one is excluded from the education
system due to economic vulnerability. Consequently, the State must implement free
education. General Observation No. 13 clarifies that it is the State's obligation to guarantee
free primary education and gradually implement free education up to third level. In
Ecuador, based on the struggles and tensions among social movements focused on
defending education, the 2008 Constitution recognized and guaranteed free education up
to third level.
The acceptability of education implies that “the form and substance of education, including
curricula and teaching methods, must be acceptable (e.g., relevant, culturally appropriate,
and of good quality) to students and, where appropriate, parents” (Committee on Economic,
Social and Cultural Rights, 1999, p. 3). The acceptability of education is often associated with
the criterion of educational quality, and at the same time, educational quality is attempted
to be measured through the number of students passing; however, this position is restricted
because acceptability “implies a new design of education, based on the human rights of all
the main actors: students, their parents, and teaching staff” (Tomasevski, 2008, p. 374).
The adaptability of education means that it “must have the flexibility to adapt to the needs
of changing societies and communities and to respond to the needs of learners in diverse
cultural and social contexts” (Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, 1999, p.
3). Therefore, institutions, regardless of their funding source, "have the obligation to
educate students, taking into account the unique context of each student in order to
maximize their learning, without their social environment affecting their cognitive
development" (Constitutional Court of Ecuador, 2024, p. 50). The constituent adopted the
adaptability criterion and established it in Articles 27 and 28 of the Constitution.
In short, adaptability entails recognizing the diversity of the members of the National
Education System and implementing the necessary guarantees so that all, taking into
account their diversity, can effectively exercise their rights in the SNE. To guarantee the
effective enjoyment of the right to education, the articulated exercise of all dimensions of
the right must be promoted. However, measuring the degree of satisfaction of the right
implies rethinking and overcoming the segmented vision that marks a clear distinction
between educational indicators and indicators of the right to education. Tomasevski has
proposed the 4As (affordability or availability, accessibility, availability, acceptability) as
indicators of the right to education (2008, pp. 349-350), while the Committee on Economic,
Social and Cultural Rights has used the 4As as dimensions of the right to education; on the
other hand, the Organization of American States (OAS) (2015) has constructed “a model
composed of quantitative indicators and qualitative progress indicators, organized
according to three types of indicators: structural, process, and results; organized under
three conceptual categories” (p. 19).
To measure the right to education and other ESCR, we observe that there is no single
proposal to understand, evaluate, or measure the dimensions of the right to education.
There are several ways. However, we believe that we can analyze availability through the
number of educational institutions, and we can evaluate accessibility through the
enrollment rate.
Analyzing the number of enrolled students through the Gross Enrollment Ratio allows us to
briefly address access to education. The Gross Enrollment Ratio Enrollment rate
(hereinafter GER) is the "number of students enrolled in a given level of education,
regardless of age, expressed as a percentage of the population of the theoretical age group
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corresponding to that level of education" (UNESCO Institute for Statistics, 2009, p. 7).
Through the Gross Enrollment Rate we can quantify the access of people to the National
Education System. The GER is obtained by dividing the total number of students enrolled in
the National Education System by the total population that is of the official age to integrate
the National Education System, the result of the division is multiplied by one hundred.
3. Methods and materials
The work adopted a mixed-method approach. The research design was based on the
dominant concurrent embedded model because quantitative and qualitative data were
collected simultaneously (Hernández et al. 2014, pp. 560-561). The information review was
conducted using official documents from the Ministry of Education and specialized
literature on the topic. Based on educational indicators such as the number of educational
institutions and the Gross Enrollment Rate, the dimensions of availability and accessibility
of the right to education were analyzed. This work describes the status of availability and
accessibility of the right to education in Ecuador from the 2013-2014 academic period to
the 2023-2024 academic period.
4. Results
Figure 1: Historical number of educational institutions in Ecuador. Adapted from: (Ministry of Education,
2024)
In the 2013-2014 school year, there were 24,573 institutions, while in the 2023-2024 school
year, there were 16,140 institutions. Therefore, from the first year analyzed to the last year,
there was a decrease of 8,433 institutions, equivalent to 34% of the total number of
educational establishments. In the 2015-2016 school year, there was an abrupt change in
the number of educational establishments, remaining at 18,625; since that year, the decline
has been stable. In the years 2022-2023, the lowest number of educational institutions will
be recorded, reaching 15,997 establishments.
The distribution of educational institutions according to support could be summarized as
"the number of educational institutions with fiscal support historically represents more
than 70% compared to other supports, private around 20%, fiscomisional 4% and
municipal 1%." (Ministry of Education, 2024, p. 27). In the years 2013-2014 the number of
24.573
23.317
18.625
17.213
16.624
16.555
16.425
16.209
16.095
15.997
16.140
0
5.000
10.000
15.000
20.000
25.000
30.000
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institutions with municipal support was 283, fiscomisional support 979, private support
5024; fiscal support 18287, however, after ten years, that is, for the 2023-2024 school year,
the number of institutions is: municipal support 112, fiscomisional support 617, private
support 3022, fiscal support 12389. Therefore, after ten years, in municipal support there
is a decrease of 60.42%, in fiscomisional support there is a reduction of 39.90%, in private
support it decreased by 39.84% and in fiscal support it decreased by 32.25%. The
educational support that has the greatest decrease in educational establishments is the
municipal one, while the support with the smallest reduction is the fiscal one.
In the 2013-2014 school year, of the 24,573 institutions, 13,815 were located in urban areas,
while 10,758 were in rural areas. This means that of the 100% of institutions, 43.77% were
located in rural areas and 56.22% in urban areas. In contrast, for the years 2023-2024, there
were 16,140, distributed: 7,477 in rural areas and 8,663 in urban areas. This means that
during these years, 46.22% of the institutions were located in rural areas and 53.67% in
urban areas. Comparing the first school year (2013-2014) with the last school year (2023-
2024), there was a 2.5% decrease in urban establishments, while establishments in rural
areas increased by 2.5%.
During the period analyzed, there was a quantitative decline in the number of educational
establishments. The number of institutions is directly related to the dimension of
availability. At first glance, the decrease in establishments would affect availability and,
therefore, there is a regression of the right to education. However, the regression of the right
to education is not only defined by the decrease in institutions, unless this decrease affects
other dimensions of the right, such as the accessibility and quality of education.
Figure 2: SNE gross enrollment rate. Adapted from: (Ministry of Education, 2024)
Analyzing enrollment numbers using the Gross Enrollment Ratio (GER) provides a brief
overview of access to education. The gross enrollment ratio (GER) is the "number of
students enrolled in a given level of education, regardless of age, expressed as a percentage
of the population in the theoretical age group corresponding to that level of education"
(UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS), 2013, p. 10). Using the GER, we can quantify people's
access to the National Education System. The GER is obtained by dividing the total number
92.32%
95,99%
94.49%
93.67%
92.23%
91.17%
89.94%
88.39%
88.84%
89.64%
87.85
82,00%
84,00%
86,00%
88,00%
90,00%
92,00%
94,00%
96,00%
98,00%
SNE gross enrollment rate
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of students enrolled in the National Education System by the total population of the official
age to join the National Education System, and multiplying the result by one hundred.
The Gross Enrollment Ratio (GER) decreased from 2014 to 2024. In the 2013-2014 school
year, the GER was 92.32%. In the 2014-2015 school year, the GER reached its highest
percentage in the last ten years, with 95.99% of enrollment. However, after that year, the
GER began to decline, reaching 88.39% in the 2020-2021 school year, the year in which the
state of emergency was declared due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Ministry of Education
attributed the decline in the GER in 2020-2021 to the COVID-19 pandemic, although, as we
can see, the decline has been sustained since 2016. In the 2021-2022 and 2022-2023 cycles,
there is a very slight recovery in student enrollment compared to the lowest year of the
GER; however, in 2023-2024, the GER falls again.
Figure 3: Students by support. Adapted from: (Ministry of Education 2024, p. 50)
In the 2013-2014 school year, enrollment distributed by educational support system shows
that 71% corresponds to fiscal support, followed by 21.14% to private support, 6.02% to
fiscomisional support, and 1.10% to municipal support. For the years 2023-2024, the total
enrollment is distributed as follows: 74.56% to fiscal support, 18.68% to private support,
5.98% to fiscomisional support, and 0.78% to municipal support. The largest percentage of
enrollment is distributed between fiscal and private support systems. Since 2013-2014, the
percentage of students enrolled in public support has grown slightly and steadily, reaching
74% in the 2016-2017 school year. It then dropped to 73%, where it remained stable and
with minimal variations until the 2019-2020 period.
Beginning in the 2020-2021 school year, the percentage of students enrolled has seen a
positive change compared to previous years, reaching 76.42%. Private support in 2013-
2014 recorded its highest percentage at 21.14%. The percentage of students enrolled
subsequently declined, reaching its lowest point in 2021-2022 at 16.06%. In 2021-2022,
there was a significant change in both fiscal and private support. There is a migration of
2013 -2014
2014 - 2015
2015 - 2016
2016 -2017
2017 -2018
2018 - 2019
2019 - 2020
2020 - 2021
2021 - 2022
2022 - 2023
2023 - 2024
2013 -
2014
2014 -
2015
2015 -
2016
2016 -
2017
2017 -
2018
2018 -
2019
2019 -
2020
2020 -
2021
2021 -
2022
2022 -
2023
2023 -
2024
Fiscal
71,74%72,61%74,24%74,38%73,92%73,52%73,06%76,42%77,15%75,41%74,56%
Fiscomisional
6,02% 6,06% 6,16% 6,20% 6,34% 6,39% 6,50% 6,25% 6,01% 5,98% 5,98%
Municipal
1,10% 1,00% 0,87% 0,82% 0,80% 0,81% 0,80% 0,79% 0,78% 0,75% 0,78%
Particular
21,14%20,33%18,74%18,60%18,94%19,28%19,64%16,53%16,06%17,85%18,68%
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students from private support to fiscal support. This phenomenon can be answered by the
data from the 2021 National Employment, Unemployment, and Underemployment Survey
(ENEMDU), which states that "As of December 2021, national poverty stood at 27.7% and
extreme poverty at 10.5%. In urban areas, poverty reached 20.8% and extreme poverty at
5.9%. Finally, in rural areas, poverty reached 42.4% and extreme poverty at 20.3%."
(National Institute of Statistics and Census (INEC), 2021, p. 8). We can observe that poverty
increased, people lost purchasing power to access goods and services, and one
manifestation of this phenomenon is the migration from private support to fiscal support.
Figure 4: Evolution of enrollment at the national level. Adapted from: (Ministry of Education, 2024, p. 47).
In the 2013-2014 school year, 4,560,138 students were enrolled in the National Education
System, while in the 2023-2024 school year, 4,202,798 were enrolled. The highest
enrollment rate was 4,728,582 in the 2014-2015 school year, while the lowest rate was
recorded in the 2023-2024 school year. Comparing the school year with the highest
enrollment rate to the school year with the lowest enrollment rate, there is an 11% decrease
in students. Analyzing all the years studied, there are two significant negative variations.
The first occurs between the years 2014-2015 and 2015-2016, where there is a decrease of
100,636 students. The decrease coincides with the reduction in the number of educational
institutions as a result of the closure of one- and two-teacher schools.
The second negative variation occurred between the 2019-2020 and 2020-2021 school
years, where there was a decrease of 92,253 students, marking the year with the greatest
decline in the enrollment rate. This information is corroborated by the work carried out by
the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), where the results indicated that in 2021 in
Ecuador, "around 90,000 students are already outside the education system and around
15% of students report not having had regular contact with their teachers in the last two
weeks" (UNICEF, 2021, p. 4). The GER decreased dramatically in 2020-2021 due to the
social and economic impacts derived from the global health crisis.
During this period, unemployment and rising poverty caused 3% of students to migrate
from the private system to the public system. There are several justified criticisms of state
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responses for being late and ineffective in ensuring student retention during the pandemic.
However, fiscal support made it possible to guarantee the right to education for some—but
not all—children and adolescents whose legal guardians lost the purchasing power to pay
for private education. However, more than 90,000 children were ultimately excluded by an
education system that failed to provide timely responses. However, as of 2023-2024, 4.1%
of children and adolescents do not have access to education. Therefore, there is a further
decline in the number of enrolled students, which opens the need to address the underlying
causes, possibly due to the increase in migration of Ecuadorians due to the growing
economic and security crisis.
The State has not guaranteed access to education, and the dropout rate from the education
system is profound at two points in time. In 2015-2016, full access was hindered by
geographical reasons (material accessibility) and economic conditions (economic
accessibility). However, in 2020-2021, full access was hindered by material reasons—the
digital divide—derived from economic and social issues (economic accessibility).
5. Conclusions
The State does not guarantee the right to education in terms of availability. The number of
educational institutions varies negatively. In the 2013-2014 school year, there were 24,573
institutions, while in the 2023-2024 school year, there were 16,140 institutions. Therefore,
in the last school year analyzed, there was a reduction equivalent to 34% of the total number
of educational establishments present in 2013-2014.
The State does not guarantee the right to education in terms of accessibility. The enrollment
rate dropped considerably at two points. In the 2015-2016 school year, there was a
decrease of 100,636 students who did not enroll. The decrease coincides with the reduction
in the number of educational institutions resulting from the closure of one-teacher and two-
teacher schools. Then, in the 2020-2021 period, there was a decrease of 92,253 students,
coinciding with the increase in poverty and unemployment due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
At both times, accessibility to the education system was affected in the dimensions of
material accessibility (geographical and digital reasons) and economic accessibility (scarce
economic resources to access goods and services) and non-discrimination.
In the 2023-2024 school year, there was again a drop in the number of enrolled students.
This coincides with the increase in migration, with 2023 being the year with the highest
number of people who did not return to the country and 2024 the year with the second
highest numbers. In future research, the challenge is to establish cause-and-effect
relationships between the aforementioned factors to determine whether they have led to
the regression of the right to education. Possible causes include the closure of single- and
two-teacher educational institutions, the increase in unemployment and poverty, and the
migration of Ecuadorians for security and economic reasons.
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Authors
ALEX LUCIO-PAREDES: Bachelor of Science in Education, with a minor in Social Sciences,
and a Law degree from the Central University of Ecuador. He holds a Master's degree in
Education for the Teaching of Social Sciences and Humanities and a Master's degree in
Constitutional Law from the Simón Bolívar Andean University, Ecuador. Winner of the 2022
Central University Award.
NADIA LUCIO-PAREDES: Primary Education Teacher from the Manuela Cañizares Higher
Pedagogical Institute; Bachelor of Science in Basic Education from the University of Cuenca;
and a Master's degree in Education and Information and Communication Technologies, with
a major in Teacher Training from the Simón Bolívar Andean University, Ecuador.
Declaration of authorship-CRediT
ALEX LUCIO-PAREDES: State of the art, related concepts, data analysis, organization and
integration of collected data, conclusions, final draft, and editing.
NADIA LUCIO-PAREDES: State of the art, related concepts, data analysis, organization and
integration of collected data, conclusions, final draft, and editing.
