Just over 100 years ago, Emperor Menelik II commissioned the first modern school in Ethiopia and it started out with only 20 students enrolled. 

A lot has happened since then and although the current education system may not be anything to boast of, there has unquestionably been movement forward in the general availability of education for Ethiopian nationals that is unprecedented in its size and scope if not in quality.  But even given dramatic progress, education in Ethiopia still lags behind most African countries, courtesy of a legacy which for most of the prior century limited educational opportunities to only the very elite.  

Early History

Before the establishment of the Dagmawi Menelik school in 1908, the formal education system in Ethiopia was organized and presented under the auspices of the Orthodox Church.  Much of this education was targeted at children of nobility and prepared them to take various religious or limited administrative positions.  But the failure of this system to adequately provide for the varied administrative needs of the modern state that Menelik wanted to establish, eventually convinced him of the necessity to establish the western style school that came to bear his name.

Due to the shortage of qualified, Ethiopian teachers to staff the school, much of the instruction was provided by Coptic teachers in French.  By 1925, a formal plan to expand secular education throughout the country had been formulated and implementation begun.  But the target of the expansion remained the very elite and this did not change much with Emperor Haile Selassie’s ascent.  Only 8000 people were enrolled in 25 schools by the time of the Italian occupation.  Afterwards, an influx of foreign teachers came into the country to compensate for the lack of qualified Ethiopians and many more schools were built in a significant expansion of the educational system.  Nevertheless, the entire system remained highly targeted at the elite and overall coverage was amongst the lowest on the African continent, a fact highlighted by the UN sponsored African conference on Education held in Addis Ababa in 1961. Stung by this embarrassing revelation, the Ministry of Education soon published a new policy that established universal primary education as its long term goalia.  

The Haile Selassie Years

Just one year later, Ethiopia became one of the first countries to invite the nascent Peace Corps into its borders.  The number of public schools quadrupled and the establishment of technical and vocational training took center stage. The first officially chartered institute of higher learning in Ethiopia,  the Haile Selassie I University was established in 1961.  Although low compared to other African nations, government spending on education increased significantly (from 10 percent in late 1960’s to 20 percent in 1970’s).   In the meantime, the Fidel Serawit literacy campaign (the brainchild of Ethiopian intellectuals in the US) was in full swing throughout the 60’s, well on its way to touching the lives of millions with basic education despite limited support from the government.  

But all of these efforts could not overcome the enormous challenges that lack of qualified manpower, facilities and funding posed.  Furthermore, the means by which the government was effectively funding the educational system (tax on agricultural holdings) unfairly burdened the rural population for a benefit enjoyed overwhelmingly by urbanites, giving rise to ever growing perceptions of inequity in the system.  The resulting public dissatisfaction prompted the imperial government to adopt a comprehensive revision of its educational system which unfortunately only served to further inflame specific segments of society and progressed to become one element of the many that eventually led to the downfall of the imperial regime.  When the new military government came to power, it inherited a country with an illiteracy rate south of 10 percent.

The Derg In Action

Less than a year after it had seized power, the Derg sent shockwaves through the educational system by shutting down all higher education institutes for 2 years and sending all the teachers and students from them on a rural campaign (The Idget Be’hibret Zemecha or Growth in Solidarity Campaign) to ostensibly provide the rural population with basic education.  But an underlying objective was to disperse potential political opposition by student activists as well as political indoctrination of the rural population at large.  The conclusion of this campaign gave birth to the National Literacy Campaign Coordinating Committee which was to plan and launch the even bigger literacy campaign known as Meserete Timhirt (Fundamental Education) in 1979.  

Although there was generally forward movement on various tracks of educational development in Ethiopia during the Derg’s administration, Meserete Timhirt and its impact on the overall literacy rate, is likely the greatest legacy it left behind.  By the time it was ousted in 1991, the literacy rate had risen to about 35%. Other notable characteristics of the educational system of that era was the incorporation of communist ideology into formal education as well as the somewhat informal Ma-Le Tinat (Marxism-Leninism Studies) sessions that the nation’s youth were required to attend weekly at their respective kebeles.  

Present Day Educational System

Well into the first few years of the present government, Ethiopia’s education policy did not show major shifts, yet increased emphasis on expansion was present. In 1997, owing partly to the work of the previous regime, primary level enrollment was over 4 million (31% of primary school age population) in 10,256 schools staffed with 92,775 teachers. At secondary level, student numbers stood at 889,650 pupils with 25,402 teachers. With an increasing number of universities, total enrolment registered 42,226 students.

The major policy makeover occurred in 2003 when the 10+2 system was first introduced.  Basically, this restructuring of the traditional secondary system, attempted to identify at grade 10 (by means of a matriculation exam) a subset of the student body that could make it into one of the nation’s limited number of public higher education institutes.  This subset would then go on to take 2 more years of college preparatory courses while some of the remainder would be routed towards technical and vocational training (TVETs).  Although this policy initially met with fierce resistance from many angles, it seems to have gained grudging acceptance for the most part with the recognition that it can certainly benefit the millions of secondary school students that won’t make it into higher education (where there is only sufficient capacity for a tiny fraction) by providing them with usable, alternative skills they can make a living with.  However, a related aspect of this policy – the elimination of freshman year in college – retains many opponents who seem to have plenty of ammunition for their concerns.  An attempt to save resources at the college level, it is based on the rationale that students are now better prepared for college and don’t need the benefit of a freshman year to prepare them for the serious coursework of their selected majors.  However, increased course repetitions and dismissals not to mention insufficiently prepared graduates, seem to be suggesting otherwise.  

Another numerically represented policy position, the 70:30 rule (proposal?) has also been the topic of much debate.  Essentially, the Ministry of Education has deemed a 70:30 ratio of science & technology to humanities in higher education as its take on the mix of education that this country’s development calls for.  The existing ratio in fact, is almost precisely the opposite.  Supporters if this position seem to think they have only the pose the question, “Who needs an anthropologist in an agrarian society that does not have enough agricultural engineers?” to demonstrate its validity.  But the somewhat arbitrary nature of how this ratio was determined does not give much comfort as to its substance.  Furthermore, how could such a goal be realistically attempted?  What would happen to all the instructors in the humanities and how could those required for a massive expansion of science and technology courses be magically generated?
Underlying many of the friction points around educational policy are some tough choices in attempting to allocate limited capacity in a manner that must sometimes make tradeoffs between equity and quality in the system.

In many ways, current policy is tilted towards equity– an implicit attempt to redress generations of inequity but perhaps also due to an assertion that the fastest path to national development lies in educating more Ethiopians at the inevitable expense of the quality of that education.  This may be one of those difficult tradeoffs that we have no choice but to acceptin the system although there must clearly be a minimum standard of acceptability  This is especially critical in the arena of higher education where the arguments for a greater focus on quality as opposed to quantity begin to take greater weight.  The problems of capacity in higher education are not going to go away soon.  As it stands, the system can only accommodate about 1 in 80 of the primary school students today.  Although the physical aspect of constructing facilities for universities has in fact been taking place at high speed, the end result has been a substantial number of empty buildings that do not have the qualified staff to man them.  A multi-pronged attempt to address this deficiency is in the works beginning with the ill advised reassignment of civil servants to teaching positions at colleges.  Better pay for teachers across the board seems like a better idea as is a recent attempt to recruit qualified personnel from the Diaspora.  

The Role Of The Private Sector

The incredible growth rate of private schools at virtually all levels seen since the sector was liberalized in the early 1990’s, is testament to the great potential for positive impact that the private sector can yet have.  Since Unity University became the first private college of the era in 1998, over 60 such institutes have opened and now host about a quarter of all higher education students.  There is similar growth in private elementary and high schools with 1,914 of them nationwide. For those that can afford them, they are generally the destination of choice for young students.  So much so that some of them have waiting lists that stretch out for years.  Indeed, many prospective Diaspora returnees cite the lack of quality options for education as one of the reasons they are reluctant to move back home with children in tow. 

Private colleges however, are another matter altogether.  In their infancy, they rapidly gained a reputation for poor quality. Perceived reasons were abundant. Some pointed to the fact that the lax accreditation process was lax with minimal follow up. Unchecked, they add, owners of these institutions seemed to pursue profit over academic excellence with students paying the ultimate price.  Consequently, public institutions of higher learning are still preferred to their private sector counterparts by a wide margin.  This may be the inevitable growing pains of a market still defined by too much demand and not enough supply. But there is no doubt that the private sector can play an important role in advancing education in Ethiopia across multiple fronts and this is only the first chapter in their lifetimes.

The Question Of Language

Although it may start with language, the question goes far beyond and delves into issues of ethnicity and cultural integration (or lack thereof) as found in the education system.  It has been quite some time since it was mandated that all instruction through the fourth grade at public schools, be conducted in the language of the administrative region the school is located in.  Thereafter, all instruction is supposed to be in English.  The reasoning for this mandate is clear and does have merit – children are more likely to be successful at school if they are learning in their mother tongue.  Unfortunately, there is also a drawback to this approach which may not become evident until much later on.  Students attending colleges that happen to be in a region different than their own, are very likely to experience culture shock and difficulty navigating through college life with likely only a limited grasp of the dominant language on campus.  No cultural exchange programs are generally present and this can sometimes result in frustration at dealing with such challenges in addition to working through a heavy workload at school.  Such programs should not take much effort to implement and could play a role in avoiding unnecessary friction.  

Looking Ahead

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