This study aims to identify, since the voice of future teachers, poor teaching practices that required to be worked to improve the current quality of the Basic Education System of Ecuador. The participants are 25 students of the Teacher`s Training Program at a national university located on the coastal region of Ecuador. The ethnographic method is applied to collect data through the techniques: focus group, forums and life histories research. All data were organized chronologically and analyzed with the Maxqda 12.0 software. The results allowed identifying challenges for the future teachers, related to: pedagogy, philosophical approach and teacher attitudes to work on ethnic diversity and inclusive education. In addition, a proposal for strengthen the professional profile on the future teachers is introduced in this study. It is concluded that the communicational competence, motivation to teach, inclusive education culture and environmental attitudes should be strengthen in future teachers programs to act in coherence to the Agenda 2030 for Global Sustainable Development.

Keywords: teacher competences, sustainable development, educational inclusion, educational innovation, higher education

The school is the place where learners use their fundamental rights.¹ Children and teenagers acquire a wide range of learning based on their teachers' comments, advices and corrections.²

Thus, this work studies the services of Basic Education System in Ecuador, where important changes have been implemented since the declaration of the new Constitution of the Republic of Ecuador in 2008.³ An important legal framework was created to guarantee the provision of human talents, economic and material resources, under the govern promise of high quality educational services to all the population. Those laws are: Organic Law for Basic Education⁴ and Organic Law for Higher Education.⁵

Contreras et al.,⁶ state that schools allow transmission of values, attitudes and norms to strengthen learners’ the citizenships competences. The teaching staff turns out to become highly influential on the students’ decision to achieve a satisfactory and healthy life style.⁷

However, Palomares et al.,⁸ argue that "there is a lack of consensus and coordination between school and family, in the role of transmitting values and civic competencies, which should be strengthened from schools”. Such affirmation raises the need to improve the communication styles between school staff and students’ relatives. Thus, the teachers’ mission can be as a professional vocation to train students about values, to transmit knowledge sources, to provide didactics that enhance learning, etc., but also, teaching is a service offered to the community as a contribution for the local development.⁹

In the case of Ecuador, a notable progress is reported in terms of increasing schools’ physical infrastructure, number of laboratories, new educational equipment, acquisition of technological tools, installation of libraries, and construction of new spaces for physical practice, sports and recreation through the project “Schools of Millennium”. However, Corral Bravo & Villafuerte¹⁰ argue that, the public policies fail to be efficient when people do not have the attitudes or the willingness to generate the change expected. This is clearly observed when, teachers express that they do not feel qualified to work with students with physical or intellectual disabilities, and they express this professional profile weakness despite the multiple inclusive education trainings they had completed.¹⁰

The Millennium Development Goals¹¹ had guided the decisions of the nations around the world, to eliminate the social, cultural and economic gaps that persist despite the efforts undertaken. Nevertheless, at the beginning of the 21st century, among the goals for human development, still appear: reduction of global poverty, increment of the access to educational services, and the improvement of the quality of life for the population of all the nations. The Agenda 2030 for the Sustainable Development of the Planet¹² ratifies the need to work on the construction of more equitable, inclusive and sustainable societies. To advance on this goal, it has been necessary to generate educational innovations which include the active participation of the communities.

The new lifestyles have affected the public health due to the increase in sedentary lifestyle and the acquisition of wrong nutritional habits, especially in the younger students. In the case of Ecuador, the reaction was to create a govern policy to increment the number of hours / classes from 3 to 5 hours per week on the subject Physical Education. However, the effective use of these class periods is not clear. In addition, all the schools do not have didactic, sports, and technical materials enough for teaching to groups with 30 to 45 students.

According to Pastor et al.,¹³ in the Basic Education schools are still applied traditional educational models and poor pedagogical practices that could put the well–being of girls, boys and young people at risk. In the case of Ecuador, little innovation has been observed in the teaching–learning processes in public schools. Meanwhile, in private schools there is a greater control on the use of the time that students spend inside the school. However, 882 cases of violence and sexual crimes to minors inside primary and high schools have been reported during the 2014–2017 period.¹⁴ The authorities have begun the capture of the aggressors, among teachers (women and men), maintenance personnel and guardians who worked in the schools. However, it is suspected that there are still more cases for be reported.

The complex scenario described, justify that future teacher review the current situation of the Ecuadorian Basic Education System. The questions to be solved in this study are: (1) what are the educational poor practices from the past that, persist in the current basic education system in Ecuador? (2) What are the key aspects that the future teachers consider should be improved on the Basic Education System in Ecuador?

This work is based on the assertions of Escobar & Useche¹⁵ regarding the need to analyse the current teaching practices, to transform the education system to a sustainable approach. This work subscribes to the reflective critical paradigm to offer future teachers of Basic Education of Ecuador, the opportunity to express their voice in concern to the current problems and professional challenges demanded by 21st century education.

The participants are 25 students of the teacher training program of the Universidad Laica Eloy Alfaro de Manabí (ULEAM), Ecuador. The profile of the participants includes: being a student of the Faculty of Educational Sciences of the ULEAM, attending regularly to one of the Teachers Training Programs, and expressing the desire to participate in this process. The participation of students with physical disabilities, gestational status, migrants, ethnic diversity, learning difficulties, and superior intelligence has been prioritized.

Instruments and data process

1. Focus group. The questionnaire used was designed by the research team to collect the participants´ voices about their experiences lived 20 years ago, when they were children attending to primary school. The participants' voices were contrasted with their current knowledge as students of a Teacher Training University Program.

The questionnaire instrument for the focus group was tested by expert investigators of Psycho didactics, Physical Education, and Language and Literature of ULEAM. The corrections made to the questionnaire were focused on the relevance of the questions and their style of writing. Five questions were considered repeated and were eliminated of the final instrument version which consisted of 8 questions grouped into the categories: (i) Past of Basic Education in Ecuador, 4 questions; and (ii) Present of Basic Education in Ecuador, 4 questions.

Life histories

Volunteer students shared their life histories about situations they lived during their pre–professional practice at local primary schools. The format used was a life history card, participants’ identity is protected. Names of trees were used to identify the participants.

The subcategories studies were:

(1) Assessment of the Ecuadorian Basic Education system

(2) Openness to change

(3) Motivation to teach in primary school.

Data was analyzed using the software Maxqda.12.0. The information was organized according to the categories: Past, present and future challenges for the Basic Education System in Ecuador.

Forum for qualitative social research

The participants identified 3 contemporary educational problems to discuss: (i) Violence and sexual abuse in schools, (2) Bullying, and (3) Students’ attitudes to climate change.

Volunteer students prepared and presented educational and social researches to install the forums. The discussions were held using the UNESCO methodology. The main forum question is: What is the role of the teachers before those contemporary educational problems?

A word cloud was designed with the most repeated terms.

Question 1: What are the educational poor practices from the past that, persist in the current basic education system in Ecuador?

The past of basic education in Ecuador:

The future teachers’ voices were collected through a focus group for the category: (1) the past of Basic Education system in Ecuador, see Table 1.

Analysis: In the past, there was a more behavioral view of the Basic Education system. There was no movement in classes without the teachers indicating it. The classes were totally directive and did not start from a clear method that facilitated the construction of a learning experience. The students were punished when they did not follow the teacher's guidelines. The classes were part of a military indoctrination where discipline was the most preponderant, however that process was not so bad, only that the abuse of it came to break spaces of respect towards the students. They were exposed to hard punishments that could cause psychological and bodily harm.

Class disruptions made by students generally led to punishment.¹⁶ The way an instructor handles punishment and student misbehavior can reinforce or break the teacher–student relationship. Thus, the need to work teacher–student communication styles such as suggestive language, direct language, formal and informal communication is identified; including intercultural communication.^17,18

The present of the basic education system in Ecuador

The future teachers’ voices were collected through a focus group. See Table 2. To change those poor practices from the past that, persist in the current basic education system is needed a balance in the use of communication styles between the teacher and students, teachers and relatives, etc., is a limitation that persists from the past. It is one of the weaknesses that must be overcome in the Basic Education System. "The extremes are the ones that hurt us" [see: P4_0: 10:07].

The reflective process, work in pairs and in teams; and sharing as learning practices allow students to make use of conversational language. Dynamics and work in diversity can help group members to learn various processes to handle problems and work on pupils` interaction. A variety of practices are required to improve the level of communication comfort commonly applied by the students.¹⁹ It is ratified that efficient communication between work teams empowers students with emotional competences.^20,21

Analysis: Students have diverse interests and motivations for learning²² that must be taken by teachers and their parents, as opportunities to (Table 3) bring them closer to learning.¹⁸

From the socio–educational approach, the school, the authorities, peers, but especially the teachers will radically influence the self–esteem of each student. It is a factor that brings people closer to personal and social success or failure.²³ Thus, children and young people learn about humanistic society, democracy, social needs and concerns, access to economic, cultural and social goods.²⁴

Sports practice and the arts have been included to support the processes of integral development of the student body, from the perspective of inclusive education¹⁰ and for its concretion; teachers with an open mind to change are required.

According to,²⁵ the education of the 21st century poses the challenge of identifying and developing in the students the competencies for life in fullness; issue that raises the need to transform the functions of the teaching staff; and insists on rethinking the actions of schools in goals related to continuous improvement and teacher training.

However,²⁶ affirm from the field of physical education and sports that this is part of basic education, because the goal is not to train athletes or bodybuilders; its mission is to facilitate opportunities for inclusion, integration, attention, listening, recreation, and full psychomotor development.²⁷

Question 2: What are the key aspects that the future teachers consider should be improved on the Basic Education System in Ecuador?

Category 3: The future basic education in Ecuador:

The forums held to identify and reflect on contemporary issues that are pending tasks to promote education in Ecuador allowed the construction of the following cloud of frequent words:

Analysis: Socio–economic development processes have prioritized materialistic, competitive and individualistic behaviors. It is necessary to work routes to strengthen the socio–affective development of children and young people through motivating, social and educational inclusion (Figure) practice that should be enhanced with assertive and conciliatory communication.¹⁸ Physical education supported by positive communication processes triggers personal and group experiences that are associated with the emotional development of those who practice it.²¹

The respect to the students’ bodies and integrity is an issue of high priority. It is urgent the work for restoring the capacity of second home to school without any form of violence and discrimination (Table 4).

Analysis: For the teaching population it is difficult to assimilate a concrete definition regarding the new professional profile of the teacher of Basic Education. There are several aspects to improve: communication, promotion of teamwork, etc.; and it is clear that the breadth and diversity of definitions demands leaving the traditionalist practice for a more conciliatory, inclusive and flexible model. Motivating and highly creative of new forms of interaction based on the reproduction of previously learned movement patterns.²⁸

Carlino²⁹ raises two fundamental problems of higher education in Latin America. The first problem focuses on the learning process; thus "the student who works in the class is the one who really learns when the teacher exposes [...] It refers to the students who have learned how to learn and are motivated to do so" ( p.11). The second problem is related to teaching focused on the transfer of knowledge. At this point, the teacher manages to communicate only a portion of everything the students need to learn. However, other strategies such as exchange, student mobility, research as a training activity, among others, are important in the construction of the professional profile of the teacher. This, without neglecting the work of social skills, as Zurita et al.,³⁰ show, university students perceive in their training programs, deficits in the development of competencies for cooperative work and attitudes socializing.³¹

For Kenneth³² it is indisputable that the teachers have the responsibility to make decisions about the planning, implementation and evaluation of the curriculum but, without communication, it will not be possible for the students to have real learning; since they transfer contents, data, ideas and express expectations through speech, body language and written expressions.³³

Effective communication is not only the concern of the correct use of language; it is also about other forms of interaction between people. Thus, for Berg & Lahelma³⁴ any Physical Education teacher who chooses to use cooperative games must "be" aware that the gender composition of a group has a direct impact on the intensity of the emotions experienced by the participants of the same way, there are intergenerational priorities so that parents and children know that a proper communication style will allow a better understanding among them. For Duta et al.,¹⁸ the term "communication style" means "specific ways of receiving the message, personal ways of interpreting messages, specific ways of expressing the response" (p.1008).^35–39 It is also an indicator to define relationships and social judgments among people; subject that fits the different cultures, ages, etc. It is not difficult to detect how teachers use these different communication styles during their classes; and attack that the efficient level of communication in the classroom is a more complex and unpredictable process. It is the way in which students see and judge the information that surrounds them; For that reason, each teacher must develop the correct communication strategies to use with their students in relation to the subject, the size of the group, the ages and interests of the students, etc. However, the strategy of "couple work" is one of the most used.¹⁹

Final thoughts

In Ecuador, universities must answer the call to be pedagogically sensible and be willing to invest in training processes for future teachers of the Basic Education system. More than for a mandatory and compliance with the norm, it is an effort to meet the expectations of children and youth to learn from creative methods at the level of international progress.

The teaching and learning process requires the strengthening of competences; socio–affective, digital, curricular, organizational, work in inclusion, foreign language, legal interpretation, communication, tutoring or advice.

Showing and exchanging information through the interactions between teachers and students should be channelled in innovative ways to motivate the work and achieve better results in less time. This communication balance that involves empathic listening to achieve excellence is potentially visible in the Ecuadorian Basic Education System.

None.

Author declares there is no conflict of interest.

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