Education as a dimension of human development: A Provincial-level Education Index for Ecuador

If no new rounds of the LSMS were to be conducted, an alternative to continue analyzing the evolution of the country’s educational development would be to use an employment survey, such as the Ecuador Employment, Unemployment and Underemployment Survey. Although these types of household surveys focus on labor issues and are less ambitious than the LSMS, they also include demographic and socioeconomic aspects of the surveyed population [75]. Furthermore, considering that each generation grows up with higher levels of education than past generations [129], it would be interesting to analyze the effect of age on educational development in Ecuadorian provinces. Since it is to be expected that the provinces with the highest mean age are also those with the lowest mean years of schooling, the estimation of an Educational Index at the provincial level by age groups–following the procedure described in this paper–could be a future line of research. This estimate could complement the information on the territorial pattern of education in Ecuador provided in this paper. In addition, the design of educational indices based on other educational variables, such as enrollment rates at different educational levels, could also be an interesting complement to the Provincial-level Education Index. Finally, new indexes could be designed to show educational inequality between subpopulations determined by characteristics such as geographic location (rural vs. urban) or gender. This would allow a deeper understanding of Ecuador’s sociodemo- graphic reality and its horizontal inequalities.

Conclusions Using the latest micro-databases available for the LSMS, we estimated a Provincial-level Edu- cation Index which showed a favorable evolution in educational development in Ecuadorian provinces as well as a slight reduction in inequality amongst them. However, despite this gen- eral improvement, there are still differences at the provincial level. Our findings are consistent with the production structure and socioeconomic features of Ecuadorian provinces and evidence the effects that certain public policies might have had in the field of education. Nevertheless, the country’s efforts in terms of implementing policies aimed at reducing poverty (National Plans for Good Living and the BDH), on the one hand, and those which seek to improve human capital and its capabilities (Ten-Year Education Plan 2006–2015, and the latest educational reforms), on the other, might not have proved sufficient to bring Ecuador out of the middle-income trap [70] in which it has been immersed for over 60 years [130]. In other words, Ecuador is caught in a low productivity growth, which keeps the country trapped between low income and high income due to structural problems that are hard to overcome. These problems prevent the country from boosting its level of development in general, and its level of educational development, in particular. Although it is true that, dur- ing the boom in oil prices (2007–2014), Ecuador experienced a period of economic growth which triggered a reduction in poverty and a redistribution of educational opportunities, cer-

tain structural problems still remain. Although investment in education increased during the years of the study, rising from 2.3% of GDP in 2006 to 4.7% in 2014 [91], the country must still address various issues. Firstly, a greater investment in school infrastructure is necessary, given that both the difficulties in accessing educational services and their quality partly account for differences between urban, rural, and indigenous areas. These differences only heighten the risk of poverty and social exclusion in certain provinces in the country. Secondly, continuous teacher training should be improved in order to enable teachers to successfully respond to society’s new demands. Also, teacher mobility between urban and rural areas should be fos- tered [131], and, finally, external standardized tests to measure students’ learning outcomes and academic performance that would provide guidelines to improve curricula should be applied [41]. A further issue that requires action is the high degree of segregation (urban-rural PLOS ONE Education as a dimension of Human development PLOS ONE | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0270932 July 8, 2022 20 / 27