Despoblación escolar en zonas rurales del Ecuador: Análisis de la disminución de la matrícula escolar en Napo (2011 - 2023)

Abstract

Abstract: School depopulation in Ecuador's rural areas brings together demographic, economic and educational dynamics that are rarely examined jointly. This research analyzed the decline of rural school enrollment between 2011 and 2023, with emphasis on the Amazonian province of Napo. Building on a theoretical framework that integrated the theories of modernization, dependency, social capital, educational equity and territorial development, it characterized the national and provincial demographic and educational context using data from INEC and the Ministry of Education, and estimated multilevel statistical models on the logarithm of the number of enrolled students. The results confirmed a sustained reduction of rural enrollment, close to 1,25% per year nationwide and 2,06% per year in Napo, and revealed that most of the variability was concentrated at the most local territorial scales: the cantonal level across the country and the parish level within Napo. It was concluded that school depopulation was a territorially uneven phenomenon that called for differentiated educational policies.