Abstract:

Education in Latin American universities changed completely due to the pandemic caused by COVID 19, which encouraged the integration of technologies in educational processes. Most of the universities in Latin American countries were not prepared for virtual education or e-learning, since they questioned the quality of studies through e-learning. The universities of the main Latin American countries such as: Mexico, Brazil and Chile were the first to adapt to e-learning, however, a regional university located on the Ecuadorian coast: The Universidad Estatal de Milagro (UNEMI) presented the same adaptation capacity to virtual education. The Universidad Estatal de Milagro implemented new virtual education techniques such as: meetings and tutorials, sharing content and virtual evaluations through presentations. The data from the different Latin American universities were obtained from the Times Higher Education (THE) platform, and the comparison of the UNEMI data was carried out using multivariate statistical techniques. Among the results of this study methodology we have: from 5,000 undergraduate students in 2019 to 42,000 students in 2022, and from 1,000 graduate students in 2019 to 8,000 students in 2022. In conclusion, the importance of designing new and better strategies for the virtual education from the Universidad Estatal de Milagro promoted teaching in Ecuadorian higher education, reaching students from different sociodemographic, cultural, economic contexts and from different geographic regions of Ecuador.

Keywords:

e-learning, quality, virtual education.