The network of public education has been greatly expanded to promote the goal of universal literacy. Primary education is free and compulsory for six years beginning at age six. Ecuador has made progress in making education available to disadvantaged classes and ethnic groups and to women. Religious and nondenominational private schools also play a significant role. Population growth and limited funding have placed great strains on the educational system, however. Efforts are under way to adapt the curriculum to Ecuador’s cultural diversity.

Secondary education varies from seriously overcrowded public institutions to elite private institutions emphasizing bilingualism in English, French, or German. The premier university is the Pontifical Catholic University in Quito, noted for its research programs in fields such as botany, archaeology, linguistics, and anthropology. It (along with other universities in Quito) attracts numerous students from the United States and Europe who participate in study abroad programs. The Polytechnic School in Quito has good programs in the sciences, as well as an outstanding centre for monitoring and studying volcanic and earthquake hazards. The Polytechnic School of the Military has outstanding facilities for technical training. San Francisco University is a private institution modeled on colleges in the United States. Numerous other universities specialize in particular areas, although the university system in general has suffered from uncertain funding and political turmoil. Many Ecuadorans seek training abroad, especially in technical fields and in business.

Much research takes place outside the universities. Geographic and environmental research and postgraduate training are conducted by the Panamerican Center for Geographical Studies and Research at the Military Geographical Institute in Quito. The same building houses other environmental institutes, libraries, and laboratories. Social science institutes are also numerous, especially in Quito; they include a local unit of the Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences. Agricultural research is concentrated in the laboratories of the National Institute of Agricultural Investigations. Major research establishments are maintained by French and U.S. foreign assistance organizations.

Cultural milieu

Ecuador is a country of great ethnic diversity and great contrasts of wealth and poverty (see People). People identify more with their region or village than with the country as a whole, although the government has attempted to nourish a sense of pan-Ecuadoran national identity. At a minimum, the country may be divided into a dozen major folk-cultural regions: norteño mestizo, northern Quechua, central highland mestizo, Quiteño urban, central Quechua, Cuencano mestizo, Lojano mestizo, southern Quechua, Esmeraldeño Blacks, coastal mestizo-mulatto, Shuar (Jivaro), and Amazonian Quechua. Numerous smaller or more-localized cultures also exist, and there are two culturally mixed areas in Santo Domingo de los Colorados and the northeastern Oriente. The most prominent and representative groups are the central highland mestizos and the coastal mestizo-mulatto mixed culture; both increasingly find their identities linked with the cities and urban cultures of Quito and Guayaquil, respectively.