Education System in Ecuador

Here is the last question that I have to answer for my study abroad assignment. How is the education system you are experiencing different from what you are accustomed to in the U.S.? From your perspective as a student in the U.S. how is it beneficial and disadvantageous? Consider the perspective of your host-country’s students, how is it beneficial to them? Is it unfavorable to them in any way?

The education system in Ecuador is quite different from the system in the United States. The first thing that I noticed about the University in Ecuador is that there are no dorms on campus. This gives the university a feeling that is very similar to that of high school. The students don’t really hang out on campus when they don’t have class, and there is nothing to do on campus after around five in the afternoon. Classes here are also much more relaxed than classes in the U.S. it is quite common that the teacher is five or ten minutes late some days and they don’t even think anything of it. If students don’t have their homework one day they just turn it in the next day without any problems.
From my perspective as a student in the U.S. it seems quite odd that the teachers are not necessarily held accountable to be to class on time and it seems like sometimes they don’t really take the classes that seriously. From what I can see it is advantageous because the culture here is much more laid back and if teachers were to be really strict on things like the time of class and exactly when homework is done a lot of Ecuadorian students would have lots of problems with that. This seems unfavorable to the students because the professors are not giving it everything that they have; they are just doing the bare minimum that is required of their jobs. It does not seem like the professors are passionate about what they are teaching.
With the new constitution of Ecuador there have been new laws passed that have started to regulate the teachers and professors in Ecuador. One of the regulations is that the teachers and professors need to pass a test that is going to hold them accountable for actually having knowledge about what they are teaching. Many of the teachers and professors are upset about this because many of them if they took the test right now would not pass because they have not been keeping up on their knowledge and have just been doing the bare minimum.