UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS AS ACTIVE CONTRIBUTORS IN THE

STRENGTHENING OF TECHNICAL SKILLS IN VULNERABLE

COMMUNITIES OF ECUADOR – A CASE STUDY
G. Astudillo, A. Guerrero Montenegro, M.F. Aguilar, V. Sánchez Padilla,
E. Chancay, M.J. Ramírez
ESPOL Polytechnic University, Escuela Superior Politécnica del Litoral, ESPOL
Campus Gustavo Galindo Km 30.5 Via Perimetral, P.O. Box 09-01-5863,
Guayaquil, Ecuador

Abstract
Education through different stages constitutes the primordial basis for the sustainable development of
countries. It also constitutes an effective tool to reduce economic and social gaps through access to a
decent job. In Ecuador, an emphasis is given to the education in technical areas that allows positive
changes in the production of goods by moving from a production model based on primary goods to
value-added goods. Thus, professionals with training in Science, Technology, Engineering and
Mathematics (STEM) are currently highly demanded in the labour market. The Escuela Superior
Politécnica del Litoral, ESPOL (Acronym in Spanish) a public higher education institution, through the
development of social projects, is part of this educational intervention that seeks to strengthen the
technical skills of students from high schools located in marginal urban areas of the city of Guayaquil
with both economic and social vulnerabilities.
The specific areas of intervention are two neighbourhoods adjacent to the University Campus where,
according to the last National Population Census, only one in ten young people has reached at least
one year of postsecondary education. Through the development of well-designed and interactive
workshops among both high school and undergraduate students, technical skills were developed for
computer maintenance, industrial automation, basic electronics and electricity. The technical training
ended with a training on business development plan motivating to entrepreneurship. This educational
intervention benefited a total of 180 high school students from the areas mentioned, aged between 15
to 18 years old. Also, 40 undergraduate students from several programs such as telematics, electronics
and automation, telecommunications, and business administration, have participated as facilitators
under the supervision of lecturers, generating a real multidisciplinary environment and strengthening the
soft skills evaluated as institutional learning outcomes: ability to understand the ethical and professional
responsibility, ability to communicate effectively, and ability to work as part of a multidisciplinary team.
By qualitative exploratory research, one of the main results found through this educational intervention
was that most high school students consider the workshops are relevant and provided them the
appropriate means for future employment opportunities; more than half of them plan to start a venture
based on what they learned during the training. Likewise, results show that 20% of high school students
with a background in accounting or administration, decided to study a technical post-secondary program
after the workshops were taught. Thus, through this intervention ESPOL is contributing to the UNESCO
Sustainable Development Goal 4 and its target 4.3 “Equal access to technical/vocational and higher
education” as well as the Goal 5 “promote productivity and competitiveness for sustainable economic
growth in a redistributive and solidary way” as established in the National Development Plan.

Keywords: educational intervention, knowledge transfer, sustainable development, vocational training

1 INTRODUCTION
In Latin America, young people face employment issues after graduating from high school. For the
inhabitants of urban-marginal communities in the city of Guayaquil, Ecuador, the fact of either not having
an adequate training in technological areas or not being able to continue post-secondary education,
results in problems for labor inclusion, increasing poverty levels and unemployment, turning it into a
social problem as reported in [1].
Worldwide, there is still a lot of work to do mainly in terms of education, training, and equality of
opportunities. With the appropriated use of new technological tools, social inclusion can be achieved
allowing development and change in educational systems. In Ecuador, the National Development Plan
[1] guarantees an inclusive, equitable and quality education, promoting lifelong learning opportunities
for the general population. Also, free higher education of charge was established constitutionally since
2008 for public universities. Nevertheless, not all students pass the admission process to access to
public universities, especially those that belong to the lowest socioeconomic strata. In fact, by 2015,
from the total students enrolled in public universities, only 8.6% belonged to the first income quintile [2].
With this background, the Ecuadorian universities through community engagement programs, perform
several inclusion projects. One of these programs, developed by the Escuela Superior Politécnica del
Litoral, ESPOL (Acronym in Spanish), a public higher education institution, aims to potentiate the skills
development of young people through technical courses, such as computer maintenance and repairing,
industrial automation and basic electricity. The training of young people who are close to being part of
the economically active population allows them adapting to new study techniques, being able to perform
efficiently in working environments either as entrepreneurs or technical support staff.
Another important fact impacted by these inclusion projects is entrepreneurship. According to the results
presented in the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor Report [3], most of the entrepreneurship projects in
Ecuador are concentrated on the coastal region (49.95%), mostly located in the urban areas and
managed by 50.09% of women motivated by monthly income between US$ 376 and US$ 562 that does
not solve a household economy. Therefore, education and training are needed for people’s development
for enhancing the efficiency of the established processes through the implementation of technology
tools. The intention of entrepreneurship in Ecuador is 52% between the ages of 18 to 24, with 15.6%
having a motivation to perform an enterprise.

Also those students from low socioeconomic strata, or coming from public schools that have decided to
study a career in a public university, do not always achieve a place at the university.
Also, a high percentage of secondary school students have not defined a career when there are finishing
their studies, even them knew if a college offer a study program to follow [4], a high percentage of
secondary school students have not defined a career when there are finishing their studies, even them
knew if a college offer a study program to follow. This is mainly due to economic restrictions hinder
access to information to sign up. A proposal would be the career options promotion in public institutes
through the training focused on technical education. In addition, the technology tools provision
encourages the development of entrepreneurship through structured planning.
In this context, we focus on STEM education due to the integration of several subjects through the
emphasis of applying knowledge by project-based learning to solve real life situations. Given this, STEM
education through the technical training by community projects can be an alternative very viable to
limitations and other circumstances that prevent young people from making decisions at an age they do
not know about the range of opportunities to the fields of knowledge related to engineering [5, 6].

2 METHODOLOGY
The present paper is defined in the social context with the use of a qualitative exploratory research. The
aim is to analyze the attitude of beneficiaries throughout the participation on technical workshops related
to computer maintenance, industrial automation, basic electronics and electricity, towards the
development of a business plan motivating to entrepreneurship. The decision to study a college
technical program after workshops is also part of the qualitative research approach. Furthermore, to
evaluate three institutional learning outcomes related to soft skills that community practices allow to
strength in the students.
The current normative regulation of Council of Higher Education (CES, acronym in Spanish) establishes
that community practices should be executed in urban-marginal areas according to their necessities [7].
The ESPOL’s Office for Community Engagement throughout their Social Responsibility Program, takes
in the workshops as activities in community projects [8]. The participation of undergraduate students is
crucial since they are the responsible to transfer the technical knowledge to the beneficiaries. This
means that the undergraduate students should have passed some subjects that provided them the skills
to contribute in the project, according to their academic program. The students are the facilitators who
explain and answer any doubt that could raise in the development of the sessions.
2.1. STEM disciplines participation
Table 1 depicts the total number of students from undergraduate programs that took part of the
community projects. Although the projects were transdisciplinary, they were proposed and directed by
professors from the Faculty of Electrical and Computer Engineering (FIEC, acronym in Spanish), turning
that technical training into the main component of the workshops. Moreover, most students in each
project were from the STEM programs to strength the technical skills and motivation into the
beneficiaries.

Table 1. Number of students by undergraduate programs.

Undergraduate Program Technical workshop developed

Computer Basic Basic Electricity and

Maintenance Electronics Industrial Automation

Business Administration 2

Graphical Design 2

Telematics Engineering 7 1

Telecommunications Engineering 9

Electronics and Automation Engineering 4

Electrical Engineering 2

2.2. Technical workshops design

To perform a correct design, plan, and implementation of the technical workshops, each project director
met with the high school's director to present the proposal and address the content according to the
beneficiary's needs. Then, the project director, tutors and selected students prepared the content of the
workshops for several weeks. Understanding that technical training sessions have specific requirements
such as laboratories and special equipment to accomplish the practical sessions, each project director
requests the use of tools from laboratories, so the beneficiaries can experience in real scenarios.
For the Computer Maintenance workshop, students made use of ten computers in addition to some
necessary tools for computer assembly and disassemble such as a blower, antistatic wristband, brush,
screwdrivers, thermal paste, cooler, and contact cleaner. Ten sessions were planned for the whole
workshop, with a length of four hours per session. The first seven sessions were dedicated to developing
technical skills, while the last three sessions were for entrepreneurship and a business plan elaboration.
The technical sessions included workshops with the equipment and weekly lessons that were part of
the final score to pass the course along with the attendance. In the last session, beneficiaries made oral
presentations about their business plan. This workshop made use of the computer laboratory in La
Consolata High School.
Likewise, there were scheduled ten sessions for the Basic Electrical and Industrial Automation
Workshop, where students made use of five Programmable Logic Controller (PLC) and ten wireless
routers. The workshop focused on the design and implementation of control architectures inside an
automated system. Moreover, the implementation of sequential automations and continuous control
systems using programmable automata among with user interfaces as part of an industrial process.
Finally, the workshop included a module related to the communication parameters configuration in
industrial equipment for data transmission and remote management. Since La Consolata High School
is a technical training institution, this workshop was carried out along with its own Electricity Laboratory,
equipped with basic electric elements that allow to set most of the practices.
On the other hand, the Basic Electronics Workshop made use of a classroom in Sagrada Familia High
School. Besides the lack of a proper laboratory, due to this is not a technical high school having only
one specialization, the community project staff moved weekly the necessary equipment to build the
scenarios for the workshop. It requires 5 laptops ,10 Arduino boards, electronic passive components,
and tools along eight sessions. During the first session, an introductory workshop was held on basic
elements of electronics, given that the attendees had no technical bases on which they could work.
Once the basic training was completed, we proceeded to develop practices that fundamentally used
Arduino UNO as a platform, for which necessary programming tools for configuration of the analog and
digital inputs for use of sensors and interfaces were sequentially prepared. be LCD screens, keyboards,
motion sensors, etc. At the end, the student is encouraged to improve what they have learned in the
workshop session, promoting entrepreneurship with the skills learned.

2.3. Data Collection

The cornerstone of this methodology is based on the results of satisfaction and motivation over the
beneficiaries and perception from the undergraduate students. The techniques carried out were
association and termination of statements throughout a survey and focus groups with the beneficiaries,
as well as institutional learning outcomes rubrics with the participation of students. Table 2 depicts a
mapping between the technical workshops and the number of beneficiaries according the High School
they were from.

Table 2. Mapping between beneficiaries from High School and taken workshop.

Sagrada Familia La Consolata High School

High School

Participants Basic Electronics Computer Basic Electricity

Maintenance and Industrial
Automation

Women 18 16 9

Men 16 14 15

The survey consists of a 30 items scale, including questions related to the useful of technical education,
higher education, entrepreneurship, academic performance, and general satisfaction with the university
intervention. The scale has a 5 points length, where ‘1’ means totally disagree and ‘5’ totally agree.
Printed surveys were provided to beneficiaries to know their age, genre, who lives with, workshop taken,
secondary course, specialization and high school.
In addition, a rubric was used to evaluate each institutional learning outcome: ability to understand the
ethical and professional responsibility, ability to communicate effectively, and ability to work as part of a
multidisciplinary team. The rubrics consider 2, 6, and 3 performance criteria respectively, within four
levels: unsatisfactory, developing, satisfactory, and exemplary. In order to determine the level, the
rubrics were given to the 27 students before and after their intervention in the workshops, so they reflect
their perception about the developed soft skills. The criteria considered for each learning outcome is the
following:
 For the ability to work as part of a multidisciplinary team, the criteria approach to consider all
team members roles; discriminate the relevant time for its contribution to the team; and, assess
the skills of their peers linked to the team's goal.
 For the ability to communicate effectively, the criteria approach to consider the lexicon
(contextualized vocabulary, precise, formal, academic); verbal communication (diction, volume,
intensity, intonation, active listening transmitter/receiver); and, nonverbal communication (body
language).

3 RESULTS
In this section we evaluate the impact results of the training projects led by the ESPOL in the high school
facilities of Nueva Prosperina and El Fortín, favorable enough to replicate the projects in different
locations to describe the impact of the training provided to students for developing skills that can be
deepened through the workshops given.

3.1 Motivation for accessing to a college education

It is necessary to find out the changes in the beneficiaries' motivational aspect throughout the training,
to know if there are considerable differences in their propensity to get admitted to a college or even to
risk along with an entrepreneurship.
Regarding the University as a study component, we can highlight that more than 90% of the trainees
were totally or partially agree that having college degree is important (U1) and once they finish their high
school studies, they would like to pursue college education (U2).
An interesting finding is that 59.49% of the trainees were partial or completely agree with the affirmation
that the economic aspect would be one of their main obstacles to get into a college education (U3).
More remarkable is that only 11.39% of the trainees expressed disagreement with this statement.
Similarly, 58.23% of the trainees surveyed were in full and partial agreement with the assertion that
admission tests for accessing into a college is their biggest obstacle to overcome to pursue a degree
program (U4). On the other hand, only 12.65% were against this assertion, as detailed in Table 3.

Table 3. Survey about college motivation

Total Agree Indifferent Disagree Total

Agree Disagree
U1 70.51% 20.51% 6.41% 1.29% 1.28%
U2 67.95% 21.79% 7.69% 0% 2.56%
U3 30.38% 29.11% 29.11% 5.06% 6.33%
U4 27.85% 30.38% 29.11% 7.59% 5.06%
 Figure 1. Participants of the basic electronic training.

3.2 Motivation for entrepreneurship

Regarding to the entrepreneurship component, we observe that about 79.75% of the beneficiaries
consider they learned practical knowledge to either start up or manage a small business. This
percentage is reduced to 64.56% of the trainees who agree to be interested, partially or totally, in setting
up a small business related to what they learned throughout the training. The remaining percentages of
disagreement are not significant and can be seen in Table 4.

Table 4. Motivation for entrepreneurship.

Total Agree Indifferent Disagree Total

Agree Disagree
Manage a small
16.46% 48.10% 31.65% 3.80% 0%
entrepreneur
Start up a small
24.05% 55.70% 16.46% 2.53% 1.26%
entrepreneur

Figure 2. Students design for electronic project entrepreneur.

3.3 Academic performance
From the perspective of the trainees, most of them were total or partial agree in the first four
statements, (i) to (iv), of the Likert scale:
(i) I think my grade average has improved with the training.
(ii) I think after the training, my grades of the courses related to my technical specialty have
improved.
(iii) I think my grade average in the courses not related with my technical specialty keep the same.
(iv) I think the different trainings are related to several courses of my specialization.
(v) I think the trainings were not focus on my specialization.
(vi) I think the trainings did not influence in my grades.

The last two statements depict a high degree of disagreement. For (v), only 35.44% of the students
showed themselves at some level of agreement, while the percentage of them that declared some level
of disagreement 39.24%. For (vi) we got a high percentage in some level of agreement of 45.57%, and
only 29.11% were in some level of disagreement (See Figure 3). These last results are consistent with
the trainees’ specialization studies. The students of La Consolata received training related to their high
school technical specialization (Computer science and electricity), while at the Sagrada Familia de
Nazareth High School the students received technical training in basic electronics in spite of being
studying for an accounting diploma.

Figure 3. Perception about academic performance.

On how useful the technical training could be, from the perspective of the students we appreciate in
some surveys that most of them, at least 63%, agrees with the statements regarding the training
received. More than 90% of them believes that the topics are appropriate for high school technical
students. A similar percentage, 93%, agrees they have learned new items, different from what they learn
in their schools. Just over 91% of the trainees agree that the topics discussed seem interesting.
Approximately 74% of young people say that they may either need or use the knowledge developed in
a short or medium term. On the other hand, we have that 83% of the trainees said that they come up
with some examples in which they could apply what they learned in real situations. The affirmation with
the lowest degree of partial or total agreement (63%) is that the content of the course is easy. Most of
the remaining percentage, 33%, are indifferent to it. Most of the trainees who agree with the statements
made regarding the usefulness of technical training is overwhelming in almost all the cases.
4 CONCLUSIONS
In this paper, we used qualitative exploratory research to evaluate the perception of trainees in technical
workshops related to computer maintenance, industrial automation, basic electronics, and electricity.
We also evaluated three institutional learning outcomes related to soft skills that community engagement
stages help to develop in university students. The project achieved the goals set out during the planning
stage: improve the perception of access to post-secondary education and improve entrepreneurial skills.

According to the results presented in this paper, it was evident that the adolescents who attended the
workshops are aware of the importance of college studies. Although the majority would like to be able
to pursue a post-secondary program, around 58% of the trainees consider that the admission exam and
the budgetary constraints are the main limitations to pursue college studies. This makes sense if we
consider that beneficiaries live in urban-marginal districts where poverty is predominant. Finally, it was
possible to reach a level of general satisfaction in the adolescents, given that they feel grateful and they
perceive the workshops as a benefit for them. The trainees also perceive that they have developed
useful tools to carry out low-level undertakings related to what has been learned in the workshops.
However, among the restrictions for the entrepreneurs, there is a lack of initial capital and legal
processes for the establishment of the company, so we believe that as a future work it may be interesting
to follow up in the medium term to see if the ideas were successfully implemented.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The authors would like to thank the authorities of the Escuela Superior Politécnica del Litoral (ESPOL),
specially to Prof. Maria Denise Rodríguez, Director of the Community Engagement Office, for her
unconditional support throughout the project development.

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