Bachelors prefer traditional careers

The trend is historical. Among the 367 careers available for this period, Medicine, Business Administration, Law, Nursing, Accounting and Psychology were once again the first chosen by high school graduates. 

The Ministry of Higher Education, Science and Technology (Senescyt) offered 118 places among the 633 technical and technological institutes, polytechnic schools and public and private universities in the country. Between the first and second applications, 223 were filled and 101 are still available. 
There is no official data on the quotas granted in the races with the highest demand, but they were finished in the first application. For analysts, this occurs because the offer in the academic market remains the same and new careers are no longer promoted. 

For this semester, 17 of the 57 public and private universities offered Medicine, with an average of 100 students each. Sara Guamán, from Saraguro, enrolled in this career, because she says that her dream since she was a child is to be a doctor. 

Her parents are poor and know that it is an expensive career. The student has thought about what future work awaits her when she finishes the six years of studies. 

Young people choose the traditional ones for several reasons, experts say: family influence, they believe that known professions provide financial solvency and are easy, despite not knowing the future employment of other careers. 

For Santiago Zúñiga, former president of the Ecuadorian Society of Postgraduate Physicians, Medicine applicants have to know that "this sector is experiencing the worst moment... which has worsened with the covid-19 pandemic and that a better future is not in sight." 

“There are no jobs or stability policies. Hospitals face shortages and the State has no money. There is no Health Career Law or Organic Health Code”, explains the doctor. 

According to the union, between 3 and 500 professionals graduate per year in the country and since 4 there have been 000 repressed cases of general practitioners who seek a scholarship for a specialty and that the State is unable to cover. 

With this complex scenario, universities must change the model of academic offers and take into account labor needs in all activities. Every year new careers appear, but they have almost no outlet or demand. 

For this semester, higher education centers offered more than 150 new careers in technical and technological areas, mainly. But they are not well received and “this happens because the advantages are not promoted to make them attractive”, says Zúñiga. 

The University of Azuay (UDA), for example, opened 11 careers, including technologies in Dairy Processing, Rural Tourism, Jewelry, Textiles, Ceramics, Sales, among others. Registrations continue, but with little participation. 

Therefore, it is not yet certain that it will work this semester. According to Patricia Ortega, director of the Technological Training Unit, these careers are designed to benefit the rural population with less access to higher education. 

The objective is to motivate the generation of enterprises and that young people do not migrate. They are short careers, up to two and a half years, with affordable tuition and necessary to develop the country in other sectors, says Ortega. 

For Juan Carlos Cabrera, judge and teacher from Cuenca, as long as the authorities of the different organizations do not sit down to make responsible public policy with undergraduate offers, nothing will change in the country and there will be more unemployment among new professionals. 

He criticizes that the labor market being saturated, the Higher Education Council authorizes the opening of the same careers to other universities. 

Every year the requests to open new technical and technological institutes also increase. Between 2019 and so far in 2021, 180 applications have been submitted and 11 have been granted. 

Cabrera's reading is that certain universities see the business side. When there is demand comes supply. "But we ask ourselves, how long are the higher education centers going to continue taking professionals out of unemployment?"