Abstract:

The Escuela Politécnica Nacional (EPN) is a public university of Ecuador, recognized as one of the most important universities in the country due to its contribution to the national scientific and technological development. In Ecuador, the education system has changed significantly in the last decade, increasing coverage, quality parameters and profiles of entry and output of both high school and undergraduate degrees. With these changes, the Ecuadorian government has tried to establish an educational system according to the current needs of society and the productive sector.

However, despite the changes made, there´re problems that have not been corrected. One of them, the access and permanence of students in the higher education system. The students admitted to the EPN, who were selected by the government after taking a standardized exam, must pass a leveling course lasting eighteen weeks. During the period October 2017- March 2018, 15.6% of students in first enrollment passed this course at the university, while 38.2% did so after a second enrollment. Within the group of admitted students, students who graduated from high school and considered as vulnerable or historically excluded, referred to as Affirmative Action students have a differentiated treatment in terms of the level reached in the standardized national exam. This group of students has an even higher level of failure.

In this context, this research aims to know the perception of teachers about the deficiencies identified in students of leveling, and particularly those students of Affirmative Action, as input to implement an inclusive model of admission for the higher education system in Ecuador. This project is intended to strengthen the abilities of admitted students through personal support and with technological tools, to improve the results of permanence in the university. The results of this qualitative research were achieved by 17 interviews with teachers of the leveling course during the academic period March-August 2019. The information processing was done using N-Vivo software.

Within the findings, several factors were evidenced that are the cause of the low levels of approval of the leveling course, among them, economic problems of the students, low level of knowledge developed in the high school level and an insufficient accompaniment of the university.

Keywords:

Inclusion, Affirmative Action, higher education system.