This contribution to the reflection on Education Action makes it possible to share an analysis of the education process in Ecuador from development models, state-driven university reform and, in contrast, the sense and non-formal training process experienced by women’s organisations from popular sectors. These transformations have historically been looked at from 1998 to 2014, showing certain transformation axes that have been predominant, in terms of constitutional legislation and public policy, and moving forward to the current educational model. Similarly, a comparison is made with what has been meant by non-formal education processes, the empowerment of women’s organisations, their methodological proposal, their pedagogical advances and challenges to formal and non-formal education, in the field of knowledge and popular and scientific knowledge. The sense of showing these two levels of reflection is to look at the education system, from the tensions between the State and one of the Ecuadorian actors, who have been women in popular sectors, on the one hand, recipients of social policy, without any greater social participation, and on the other hand, the progress and limits of their political training proposals in their challenges to the State, supported, inter alia, by the processes of empowerment and participation by grassroots organisations.