Abstract:

Formal education represents one of the main determining factors in poverty reduction. Different authors remark the relationship between knowledge, increase of incomes, and living standards. It represents a crucial factor in an individual socioeconomic situation today and tomorrow. The main characteristics of development include: education, health and economy, being these important factors in the achievement of sustainable social development. In this line, the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (UNMDG-2000) and the Sustainable Development Objectives agenda highlights the need of promoting universal education not only as an objective, but also as a means to reduce poverty since it is considered as an investment that contributes to the economic growth, social development and reduction of inequality. In Ecuador, these objectives have been developed under the National Plan for Well-being. According to its executors, it has achieved remarkable results in the majority of its objectives and goals, including the increase of the basic education coverage.

Through a descriptive and correlational research is aimed to determine the ecuadorian (5-75years old) perception of education and poverty. Socio-demographic characteristics marked by its condition of poor and not poor are analyzed with the objective to identify the peculiarities and differences between these two groups and relate them to the development objectives raised by the government.

The Employment, Underemployment, and Unemployment Survey (ENEMDU 2015) - INEC has been taken as a reference in the study, and it is important to mention that it uses standardized variables of the ILO International Labor Organization, making the results comparable internationally. The analyzed variables are: age, racial group, language, educational attainment, attendance, school day, educational establishment, activity and inactivity condition, computer and technological Access, natural region, state assistance, among others.

The most important results obtained in the research work include the gap between the attendance and the achievements according to the educational attainment. It is mainly observed that poor show a major percentage of attendance and better results regarding the culmination of the period of study in basic and primary school. However, in middle and higher education, this percentage is higher among non poor people. This situation can be influenced by the state assistance and public policies implemented such as the free distribution of uniforms and lunch, and other benefits given by the public establishments. The second major result is the high concentration of poor people with their particular characteristics in ethnic groups such as: indigenous, afro-ecuadorian, black, mulatto, and montubio.

Based on the results, it seems that the public policies focused on improving access to education of poor population show encouraging results in basic and primary education. However, they also show the existing inequity in higher levels of education between mestizos and white and other ethnic minority groups.

Keywords:

Education, poverty condition, Ecuador, socio-demographic profile.