Abstract:

Beginning in 2010, with the post-neoliberal government of the self-styled "Revolución Ciudadana", a reform of the higher education policy in Ecuador begins. The Ecuadorian government proposed to give the State a more important role in the management of the economy and in the management of several other areas of public life. Among them to higher education. That is to say, the debate on the role of the university and its relationship with the productive sector and society in general was revitalized.

This reform was characterized by a tension between the academy and the government. It was marked by periods of collaboration and others of a strong confrontation, whose moment fulminating was the promulgation of a new law of higher education. There were coincidences between these two types of actors, among which the following stand out: the conception of higher education as a public good, the prioritization of research and the search for quality. However, on the other hand, there were discrepancies in several aspects: the centralization and governmental control, the conception of autonomy, the forms of evaluation of university quality, the university typology proposed by the government, the use of rankings and international indicators, and the conception of the role of the university in the economic system.

The importance of studying these normative definitions, discourses and definitions of politics relates to the fact that they oriented the university reform that took place in Ecuador and that had and still has deep consequences in the internal structures of the universities, in their budgets, in its institutional culture and in the daily activities of the university professor.

In this regard, this work is a case study on the processes of change in higher education policies within the framework of post-neoliberal governments. The theoretical considerations raised support the use of a socio-institutional approach based on the new institutionalism, taking into account the strategic interaction of the relevant actors (Scartascini et al., 2011). This, together with the analysis of public policies, allows us to explain the change of higher education policy, paying attention to the role of ideas, interests and institutions. That is to say, it is intended to construct an analytical narrative that accounts for the causality of the change in the Ecuadorian higher education policy.

To answer these questions, interviews will be carried out with a group of protagonists of the processes of definition and execution of these policies throughout these years. In addition, discourses contained in development plans, creation decrees of public higher education bodies, among other regulations and official documents are analyzed.

Keywords:

Higher education policy, post-neoliberalism, government academy relationship.