Education: The Key to Developing and Diversifying the Economy
Correa has said "quality, free public education is the basis of a real democracy," and that the path away from a Third World raw material export dependent economy lies in raising the educational and skill level of the population. Consequently, over $20 billion has been invested in education over his ten year presidency. Not only is education free, including university, but to reduce barriers for low-income students the government provides free school supplies, books, uniforms, and meals. Now more than 300,000 children who used have to work go to school.
Ecuador is completing a program of building 14 schools focused on teaching and preserving the country's various ancestral ethnic languages. So far Quechua and Shuar language schools are operating. Royalties from nearby mining and oil projects now are allocated to help fund many of the advanced and modern schools being built in the indigenous countryside.
In contrast to the U.S., where student loan debt is now $1.3 trillion, in Ecuador free education is a human right, guaranteed through university. In 2015 the country had the second highest level of public investment in higher education in the world. Over $1 billion has been invested in university construction, including in the Amazon region to specifically serve the Original Peoples of the country. These government efforts, combined with student stipends, have led to the number of poor students in university doubling, while the number of Original Peoples gaining university degrees has almost tripled. Compared to 2006, now a quarter million more Ecuadorans are in university.
Social Programs to Fight Poverty
Ecuador's minimum wage has more than doubled, from $170 a month in 2007 to $375 today, one of the highest in Latin America. The minimum wage, unlike the case with US minimum wage earners, covers the cost of the basic basket of goods, whereas in 2006 it covered only 68%.[3]
In the US, the minimum wage has fallen by 1/3 since 1968, and here, people normally do not have free health care. Moreover, Ecuador has enforced a living wage policy, revolutionary if instituted in the US: companies cannot pay dividends until all employees earn a living wage.
The labor of homemakers, contributing to 15% of the GDP, is now legally recognized. Consequently, 1.5 million homemakers, and so their families, now receive social security benefits, including disability compensation and pension.
The Bono de Desarollo Humano [Human Development Bonus] of $50 a month aids 1.3 million poor families with children. Now 328,000 three and four year-olds go to pre-school, compared to 27,470 in 2007.
These Citizens Revolution programs to serve the people, combined with major investments in infrastructure and economic development, have reduced the poverty rate from 37.6% in 2007 to 22% today. Rural poverty has been reduced from 61% to 35%. Extreme poverty has been cut in half, from 13% of the population in 2006 to 5.7 % now. Poverty among Afro-descendants, 7% of the population, dropped by over 20%. In a country of 16.5 million today, in ten years two million have risen out of poverty.
In contrast, 46.7 million US people live below the poverty line, 15% of Americans, up from 12.3% in 2006 (including the undocumented poor, it is over 50 million.) The Black population in poverty totaled 26.2% in 2014, up from 24.7% in 2007.
Ecuador slashed income inequality: before, the richest 10% of the population had 42 times as much as the poorest 10%, now it is 22 times as much, one of the greatest reductions in inequality in Latin America.
Health Care
In contrast to the U.S. corporate for profit health system, Correa has invested over $16 billion in providing quality free health care, eight times that between 2000-2006. In the 40 years prior to the Citizens Revolution, not one new public hospital was built in any of the main cities. Since then, 13 new hospitals have been built, 18 more under construction around the country.
This health system has added 34,000 medical professionals. Thanks to free health care, still a dream in the United States, combined with increased access and services, the people's visits to the doctor have almost tripled in ten years.
Environmental Protection
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