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Ecuador Students
Beginning in the first decade of the twentieth century,
students took to the streets on a number of occasions in defense of
public freedoms, university autonomy and reform, separation of
church and state, and opposition to dictatorship. Following the
establishment in 1944 of the Federation of University Students of
Ecuador (Federación de Estudiantes Universitarios del Ecuador--
FEUE), the student movement, spurred by campus representatives of
the political parties, became increasingly politicized and one of
the most influential pressure groups in the country, playing a role
in every nonconstitutional change of government. Both the FEUE and
the Federation of High School Students of Ecuador (Federación de
Estudiantes Secundarios del Ecuador--FESE) contributed
significantly to the downfall in 1966 of the military junta, which
had abolished university autonomy and student-faculty government.
Student federations were organized at Catholic universities in 1966
and at the polytechnic schools in 1969. In the early 1970, the FEUE
represented some 40,000 student at five public and two Catholic
universities, one non-Catholic private university, and the
polytechnic schools
(see Education
, ch. 2).
During the late 1960s, the student movement, heavily influenced
by the Cuban Revolution, had assumed a militantly anti-oligarchy,
anti-military, and anti-imperialist orientation. Student radicalism
prompted the military government to intervene brutally in the
Central University in 1966 and to close it in 1970. In the late
1970s, the student movement, seriously weakened as a result of
endemic factionalism and the increasing isolation of the FEUE
leadership, faced invincible shortcomings. With few exceptions, the
political action of the university federations in the 1970s had
gone no farther than press statements, graffiti, revolutionary
pamphlets, street demonstrations, meetings, strikes, and work
stoppages. Consequently, the groups had lost their traditional
political prestige and the support of important segments of the
student population.
Data as of 1989
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