The State University of Amazonia as an intercultural scenario

Amazonian and indigenous Ecuadorian households have on average less access to basic public services, infrastructure and higher education. With the objective of evaluating intercultural access and practice at the Universidad Estatal Amazónica (UEA), through documentary analysis, the databases of the academic teaching system are studied to determine the evolution in ethnic self-identification in enrollment between the academic periods 2019-2019 to 2020-2021, two before the Covid-19 pandemic and two during it, and the specific guidelines proposed by Senescyt-Unesco for the mainstreaming of equality in Higher Education are compared with evidence of daily intercultural practices at UEA. The result indicates that enrollment by ethnic self-identification is strengthened in the first period of the pandemic and weakened in the last period elapsed, due to availabilities in virtual education. Also, UEA has met 27 of the 38 guidelines established by Senescyt & Unesco (2015), with greater approximation of compliance in the academic, research, linkage and management areas, while the training and administrative areas have lower performance. In the Amazonian territory, so diverse and rich in culture and nature, the Ecuadorian university has yet to find mechanisms to train and strengthen interculturality, despite the fact that public standards for the quality of higher education fail to incorporate mechanisms to recognize the wisdom of indigenous peoples.