Three sectors grew during the pandemic in the country

Following the arrival of the new coronavirus , many sectors had to reinvent themselves to continue their activities. And several turned to technology to make the leap to digital.

Three sectors grew during the pandemic in the country

One of them is the educational sector. Prosecutor Rosa Tobar says that when the confinement began, teachers turned to platforms available on the Internet to keep in touch with their students.

In May, the Ministry of Education standardized the system with the Teams platform. This enabled organized classes, meetings and training. In addition, as of May 5, the MinEdu enabled the Telework Activities Monitoring System , to evaluate the work of teachers. At the end of June, the students of the Sierra-Amazonía cycle will present their virtual works. Also, for the first time, students will replace the supplemental , remedial and grace exams with an online project.

Students who cannot access Teams receive guides from their tutors through WhatsApp. Before the pandemic, teleeducation practically did not exist in the country.

The Minister of Telecommunications, Andrés Michelena , reported that wifi points and advanced mobile service are currently installed in 247 infocentres in 219 parishes on the Coast and in the Galapagos that started the school year in May. 2 GB of data per month will also be delivered to students who access the MinEdu platform . The solution applies to 306 parishes in the Costa region, which have 3G and / or 4G infrastructure.

Access to the education platform through cell phones by students has a penetration of 51.8% in the country. 46.6% connect via computer. The MinEdu virtual education page registers 13.58 million visits, 5.5 million content downloads and almost
1 million active users.

In Ecuador, teleworking also flourished in other areas. In February 2020, on the eve of the pandemic, 14,500 teleworkers were registered in Ecuador. In March, already quarantined, there were 253,247 people telecommuting; now there are 375,860, according to data from the Ministry of Labor.

In the public sector, 261,557 employees are now connected from home and 114,303 in the private area. In total, teleworking is applied in the country in 4,272 companies, especially in the administrative segments of the service, productive sectors. , exporter and agricultural.

Carlos Ferreira, manager of Digital Solutions at Telefónica, points out that the niches that have opted for teleworking the most during the pandemic are those related to services such as, for example, banking and ‘retail’ (delivery of products to the consumer).

A survey by Deloitte Consulting reveals that 91% of companies adopted teleworking due to the health emergency. Due to this, due to educational activity and electronic commerce, Internet use has grown by 25% during confinement, according to Francisco Balarezo, Executive Director of the Association of Companies that Provide Internet Services (Aeprovi).

The need to stay home fueled another segment: e-commerce. Jackson Torres , vice minister of industries, says the pandemic led to a substantial increase in online sales.

Leonardo Ottati, director of the Ecuadorian Chamber of Electronic Commerce (CECE), points out that it is necessary to differentiate sectors, because while in tourism, aviation and entertainment the drop was total, electronic commerce in other segments grew between 500 and 800%. According to CECE,

The categories that have seen the most growth in online sales are food , cleaning, personal and household hygiene, as well as items that are sold in pharmacies and pet food . Online sales of home appliances, computers, school supplies, hardware, parts, and digital advertisements also increased.

https://www.elcomercio.com/tendencia/teleeducacion-teletrabajo-entrentación-crecimiento-covid19.html