Ecuador: Promoting University in Terms of Needs

Quito, Jan 23. -The Citizens'' Revolution fosters a deluxe higher education according to Ecuador''s need, with equal opportunities for everyone, leveling and options for the poor, said Rene Ramirez, National Secretary for Higher Education, Science and Technology (Senescyt).

He added that the country sponsors the redistribution of resources to universities and creates careers the country needs and are not being offered.

In the previous commercialization process of higher education, the country created cheap careers, with one professor for 100 students. But it did not include careers such as medicine, which entails more costs, labs, internships and work in hospitals, Ramirez stated.

The same occurred with some careers of engineering, and the government will seek the excellence of universities and will distribute, in function of that excellence and the relevance of the necessary careers, the quantity of resources available in the country, he said.

Ramirez referred to the Prometeo Scholaships, which is aimed at repatriating high-level Ecuadorian experts who have emigrated, and favors their return to the country through good economic incentives.

Part of the Ecuadorian emigration has been enough specialized, as occurred with physicians who left for Chile, said Ramirez, who emphasized the interest in those high-level Ecuadorians to return to the country, Ramirez noted.

The official thanked Cuba for its role in freely training Ecuadorian professionals, and announced the coming graduation of about 800 students in the Havana-based Latin American School of Medicine.

About this issue, Ramirez stated that Ecuador needs specialists in this moment, and announced that the government is analyzing the best mechanism, so that the future graduates can continue their studies in those specialties the Health Ministry indicates. (Prensa Latina)