The curriculum of agricultural and livestock sciences at UPSE. A student perspective for analisis

Abstract

Higher education in Ecuador is going through a process of changes where the redesign of the careers is taking an important role. The new curricula must be conceived taking into account the criteria and perspective of employers, professors, researchers, undergraduate students from different specialties and current students. This research considers the opinions of last semester students from the Agricultural and livestock Engineering and Agricultural and Agribusiness Management Engineering at the Faculty of Agricultural Sciences in State University of Santa Elena with the aim of revealing the contributions of these careers for the training of future students in order to solve the problems and tensions of the country and the zone 5, and reveal their possibilities to bring knowledge and qualified labor for a change in the productive matrix as well. A survey was applied to the students in order to get the level of knowledge about these issues: the problems tensions of the zone in which the career can contribute and solve, their opinions about pre-professional practicum and internships, the projects connected to the agricultural and livestock reality, their proposal for the betterment of the career and its potential to change the productive matrix. From the collected criteria a group of actions is proposed to be considered in the redesign of the agricultural and livestock Engineering.