Buen vivir and Changes in Education in Ecuador, 2006–2016

• Author: Ricardo Restrepo Echavarría,Agnes Orosz
• Published date: 01 May 2021
• Date: 01 May 2021
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/0094582X211009270
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/0094582X211009270

LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES, Issue 238, Vol. 48 No. 3, May 2021, 119–135

DOI: 10.1177/0094582X211009270

© 2021 Latin American Perspectives

119

Buen vivir and Changes in Education in Ecuador,

2006–2016

by

Ricardo Restrepo Echavarría and Agnes Orosz

Education is a pillar of buen vivir, the guiding ideal of Ecuador’s 2008 Constitution.

In this framework, Ecuador made significant shifts in its education system from 2006 to

2016, the decade of the Citizens’ Revolution. The key buen vivir concepts and processes

that framed these shifts were considering education as a right, as a social debt, and as a

driver of a more just, knowledge-intensive and clean economy. Resource allocation, gen-

eral access, learning, and inclusion of structurally marginalized groups showed signifi-

cant improvement in this decade, along with other key political, economic and social

changes, thus making significant advances in the emancipation of society toward buen

vivir, and marking elements of how and why advancing this transformation is important.

La educación como derecho es un pilar del buen vivir, el ideal rector de la Constitución

de Ecuador de 2008. En este marco, Ecuador realizó cambios significativos en su sistema

educativo de 2006 a 2016. Los conceptos y procesos clave que enmarcaron estos cambios

fueron considerar la educación como un derecho, una deuda social, y el motor de una

economía más justa, intensiva en conocimiento y limpia. La asignación de recursos, el

acceso general, el aprendizaje y la inclusión de grupos estructuralmente marginados tuvi-

eron mejorías significativas, junto a otros cambios políticos, económicos y sociales claves,

realizando avances significativos en la emancipación de la sociedad hacia el buen vivir, así

como delineando elementos de cómo y por qué avanzar esta transformación es importante.

Keywords: Ecuador, Education, Rights, Neoliberalism, Buen vivir

Between 2006 and 2016 Ecuador underwent significant social, political, and

economic changes, of which education was a key part. This paper will present

critical aspects of these changes in education in the context of wider transfor-

mations that have since seen important set-backs. Luna (2014) explores educa-

tional policy in Ecuador in the neoliberal years between 1980 and 2006, finding

significant gaps, inequalities, and instability as austerity coupled with arbitrary

distribution and the lack of a stable government prevented improvements in

education during this period. By contrast, the decade from 2006 to 2016 saw

considerable positive changes. Education became a public policy priority pur-

sued by the Correa administration, which was elected to power in 2006 to pro-

mote a “Citizens’ Revolution” in the framework of buen vivir. In this paper, we

begin our analysis of the changes in education in Ecuador in this decade with

Ricardo Restrepo Echavarría is a professor at the Technical University of Manabí, Ecuador, and

part of the Critical Studies for Social Justice Research Group. His research interests lie at the inter-

section of philosophy, social sciences, and policy. Agnes Orosz is a teacher educator professor and

currently the director of the Language Center, at the National Education University of Ecuador.

1009270LAPXXX10.1177/0094582X211009270Latin American PerspectivesRestrepo and Orosz / BUEN VIVIR AND EDUCATION IN ECUADOR

research-article2021

120 LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES

a theoretical discussion of buen vivir and the place of education within it. In the

next section we discuss our methodology, and in the next we present and dis-

cuss our results and then conclude with some remarks on the reach and limita-

tions of the present study and point to further avenues to explore. Education is

not only a key right that government is required to guarantee in the framework

of buen vivir; it is also required for the development of citizenship—another

key aspect of buen vivir. In this respect, this essay presents critical aspects in

which buen vivir, through changes in education, was advanced in the 2006–

2016 decade.

SOME THEORETICAL REMARKS ON BUEN VIVIR

Buen vivir (good living) is an ethical and political concept adopted in the

2008 Ecuadorian Constitution. Academically, it has generated much interest,

theorizing, and meta-theorizing. At the meta level, some have adopted the

view that it is “exhausted and meaningless” (for instance, in a paper review,

Marc Becker, May 9, 2019); others have leaned toward a noncognitive perspec-

tive in which this intellectual artifact is empty, malleable, and porous but useful

for political mobilizing of a populist bent (for instance, Mazzolini, 2012). A

third meta-theoretical perspective affirms the existence of content for the idea

while not denying the mobilizing utility that its preponderance in political dis-

course has had for making it concrete (akin to Williford, 2018). While a full

defense of a realist stance on buen vivir is not the purpose of this paper, it is

worthwhile to offer some suggestions that may elucidate it and make its use

appealing.

Buen vivir has been discussed and presented in various frameworks of polit-

ical philosophy, including Aristotelianism (Ramirez, 2012a), republican social-

ism (Ramirez, 2012b), Sen and Nussbaum’s capabilities approach (SENPLADES,

2009–2013), interculturalism (Huainacuni, 2010; Viteri, 2006), radical environ-

mentalism (Huainacuni, 2010; Morales, 2007; 2008), indigenism (Macas, 2010;

Pacari, 2009), and alternatives to development (Gudynas and Acosta, 2011;

Viteri, 2006). Debates in political philosophy are not novel in any tradition, but

all parties to the debate recognize buen vivir’s character as centered on rights

and the importance of not just human life. These two fundamental aspects of

buen vivir can be synthesized as follows:

First, buen vivir is against all forms of domination of one group or individ-

ual over another, including all forms of cultural, national, ethnic, racial, gender,

and capital and class domination. It affirms human rights and the conditions

for their complete application, including the universal right to basic services,

which involves the decommodification and de-neoliberalization of basic inter-

ests and public goods even when this is against certain laws (rights being deon-

tologically prior to laws—a contrast between rule of law and state of rights found

in the Ecuadorian constitution). Interculturalism is a corollary of this: it pro-

poses that cultures recognize each other and their collective rights, maintain

dialogue, complement one another (correcting centuries of conquest and colo-

nialism), and strengthen synergies. Recognition and redistribution are key ele-

ments for achieving this. Working for buen vivir requires allying with the