Ecuador's education reforms. The president seeks to improve ailing schools and universities

AS IN Venezuela, education reforms in Ecuador, promoted by its left-wing president, Rafael Correa, have led to protests and tear-gas on the streets. The teachers’ union and the students’ federation, both linked to a Maoist opposition party, are furious at proposals to sack bad teachers and make schools and universities account better for the $2.3 billion or so a year the government spends on them.

Ecuador’s schools are poor even by South America’s generally low standards. Although almost all of its children enroll in primary education, fewer than two-thirds make it to secondary school. By 2015 Mr Correa, a former economics professor re-elected for a second term in April, wants state schools to match the quality of elite private ones like the Lycée La Condamine in Quito, which his own children attend.

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