Secularization and Educational Secularism in Ecuador

Definition

Ecuadorian historiography tends to link the development of secular education with the proclamation of the law for secular education of 1906. However, in reality the emergence of secular education and its peculiar characteristics cannot be understood as separated from the complex and unfinished processes of the Liberal Revolution headed by Eloy Alfaro in 1895. The emergence of secular education was a phenomenon of multiple political aspects and significations. In this sense it is worth noting that during the first revolutionary decade that ended with the murder of Alfaro in 1912, the aspiration of breaking the Catholic Church’s hegemony in the field of education was not consolidated. This was not only due to the resistance of the conservative Catholic sectors but because it required a restructuring of public instruction that took time to accomplish, and when it happened, the conditions were not adequate for directing a unified model of reforms for secular education. In fact,...