On this day, we got to visit Yachay Tech University, located in the Urcuqui-Imbabura Province, which is around a 250 mile trip from Quito, Ecuador.  The university is also located in a city by the same name. Yachey is a word in the  Ecuadorian Kiwchua Indigenous Language, which means knowledge or learning. Therefore, the area where the university is located is known as the, “Yachay, the City of Knowledge”.

This is a state supported university that started operating for the first time in 2014.  It has very competitive admission policies and in my opinion, it is destined to become the Stanford University of Ecuador. The university’s mission is to become a major research university in the Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) fields in Ecuador and also to collaborate with other research public/private  universities both in Ecuador and around the world.  The university’s webpage is located here: http://yachaytech.edu.ec . According to the presentation that we attended, the university has admitted students from all of the 24 provinces, which make up the Republic of Ecuador. The presentor also mentioned that because admitted students come from all of the provinces of Ecuador, the university also provides student housing, which is against the tradition of other state supported Ecuadorian universities.

The university also has a Facebook page located here:  https://www.facebook.com/yachaytech . Here is a post that I have embedded directly from the university’s Facebook page to this website. It shows the pictures, names and positions of the main administrators of the university. In my opinion, this is an impressive list of world-class leaders:

 

I am also linking this public graphic directly from the University’s official webpage. It shows in great detail what types of majors the university offers and the names of the colleges that house all of the different subject areas.

A  university student affairs administrator spoke with our study group and informed us, that because of the inconsistency of educational requirements  in the many public/private k-12 schools of the provinces of Ecuador, the first thing that the university does for all admitted students is to remediate them in their English language and  math skills. He also explained all the different degree offerings and how the college is structured as shown in the above graphic. Additionally, he told us told that the university currently has 40 corporate sponsors supporting their efforts. Some of the corporations mentioned were Cisco Systems, China Telecom, Intel, IBM, Interworks and Microsoft. Personally, as a college professor who teaches Computer Science, I was very impressed with the caliber of the technology corporations mentioned.

Moreover, the presenter stated that the university is currently establishing partnerships with research universities around the world in countries such as Germany, Japan, Spain, China and the US. Furthermore, that the university is currently adding it’s own k-12 school as well as a community college and plans to add masters as well as doctoral level degrees. Finally, the administrator mentioned that because this university is still in the developmental stage, it has not yet been accredited by the state accreditation agency in Ecuador.

The presentation/tour then continued with a long walk through the university and explanation of the different buildings on campus. Due to the travel time required to get to this university, our group faculty leader planned for the trip to take at least eight hours and thus we did not return to our bed/breakfast location until after 5:00 pm.

As I previously wrote about in my post regarding my study abroad activities occuring on June 3rd, 2016, in Ecuador accreditation is handled jointly by two state agencies. The first is the, “Secretaria de Educación Superior, Ciencia, Tecnología e Innovación (SENESCYT)”. Their website is located here: http://www.educacionsuperior.gob.ec/ The second agency is the , “Consejo de Evaluación, Acreditación y Aseguramiento de la Calidad de la Educación Superior (CEASES)”.  Their website is here: Http://www.ceaaces.gob.ec/

According to these websites,  the agencies  evaluate all colleges/universities on forty eight standards and therefore it takes several years to complete this process. Once the accreditation process is complete, each college/university either earns accreditation status with a national ranking ranging from A to E, with the ranking of A being the highest rank or fails to earn accreditation status. I am hoping that once the first group of  undergraduate Yachay Tech students are ready to graduate, that the college will earn accreditation status with a ranking of A.

Here are some pictures that I took, while I was touring the campus. This is the home of the highest university administrator, the University Rector.

Here is a small picturous waterfall of campus.

On the way home we stopped at the local restaurant to eat and then headed to our bed/breakfast location. Here is a picture of the menu at the restaurant.