By Johanna Lasonen, Raija Kemppainen and Kolawole Raheem
Institute for Educational Research
University of Jyväskylä, Finland
Ethiopia is the second most populous country in Sub-Saharan Africa after Nigeria. Ethiopia is ethnically and linguistically very diverse. The transitional legislature formally recognised 64 major ethnic groups, and more than 250 distinct languages are know to be spoken in the country. The main ethnic groups are the Oromo and the Amhara. Amharic is the lingua franca and English is the second de facto language of the state. Ethiopia is one of the poorest countries in the world.
Access to education in Ethiopia is the most limited in the region. The illiteracy rate is high, approximately 70 per cent for females and 50 per cent for males. In 1997 the Government launched the Education Sector Development Project (ESDP), whose aims include that of increasing school attendance among rural children and especially girls.
Furthermore, Ethiopia is working towards achieving the EFA (Education For All) goals as defined in the EFA Dakar Framework in 2000.
The World Declaration of Education for All in Jomtien, Thailand in 1990 pointed out that education is a fundamental right. The achievement of the EFA goals were to be evaluated through the EFA Dakar assessment. The EFA Dakar Framework focused on six educational goals: early childhood care and education; access to compulsory primary education by 2015, particularly for girls; learning needs of all young people and adults; 50% improvement in adult literacy by 20015, especially for women; elimination of gender disparities in primary and secondary education by 2005 and achievement of gender equality in education by 2015; and improvement of all aspects of the quality of education and achievement of learning outcomes, especially in literacy, numeracy and essential life skills. The Government of Ethiopia has adopted the goal of ensuring universal access to and completion of basic education and reducing the adult illiteracy rate by 2015.
The purpose of this research was to answer the following questions: 1) To what extent do Ethiopian children have access to educational and training services? 2) To what extent do women progress to primary, secondary and technical education? and 3) To what extent is the quality of education improving? These research questions were closely related to the EFA goals but expanded the scope of access and equality issues to cover secondary education and technical and vocational education. Education and training have particular significance for the reduction of poverty and for strategies of gender equity because they stress the dimensions of opportunities, skills, human resources development and empowerment. However, in Ethiopia an emphasis on developing TVET and skills was introduced only at the turn of the 21st century.
The analysis is based on secondary and primary data. The secondary data comprise documents concerning education and gender policy received from the Finnish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, from Finnish implementing agencies, from the Finnish Embassy in Addis Abeba, from other donor organizations present in Ethiopia, and from Ethiopian executing agencies, policy makers and educational administrators. The primary data was collected through structured in-depth and focus-group interviews with different stakeholders in Finland and Ethiopia. The educational projects supported by the Finnish government promoted capacity building with a view to enabling Ethiopia to provide young people access to education and literacy. Finland has concentrated on the development of special education.
The study found that Ethiopia has made some progress towards the Dakar EFA goals. Access to primary education has expanded (EFA Goal 2). The primary-school enrolment tripled during the late 1990s and early 2000s. However, according to NER Ethiopia was in 2000 among the countries with the lowest enrolment rates. Nearly half of the children remain out of schools in Ethiopia. Although children are taught in Amharic, the lingua franca, in the early grades, the use of English increases in the upper grades. English is used in secondary, post-secondary, and higher education Girls’ access to primary education lags significantly behind boys’ access. The gender gap in primary-school enrolment remains at the level of about 20 per cent. Female student numbers should be drastically increased if Ethiopia is to reach the goal of all children having access to primary education by 2015 (EFA Goal 2). The same trend is observed inthe goal of gender parity and equality. Both in primary and secondary education, Ethiopia is at risk of not reaching the goal of gender parity even by 2015 (EFA Goal 5). Improving gender parity is the best predicator of achieving the EFA goals in general. Female teachers may encourage female students to stay in school through positive role models. However, the increase of female teachers has been fairly slow.
Quality of education (EFA Goal 6) can be measured by several indicators. Ethiopia has high teacher qualifications only in the first cycle of primary-level education. The studentteacher ratios are high and increasing. The shortage of teachers is likely to grow with HIV/AIDS taking its toll among teachers. There is also a shortage of teachers in rural and remote areas, and quality varies between the regions. Ethiopian schools operate with very modest facilities. Only about 60 per cent of students in Ethiopia survive to Grade 5, which makes it impossible to achieve measurable outcomes for all children in literacy, numeracyand essential life skills (EFA Goal 6).
Technical and Vocational Training is one of the main components of ESDP policy. Increasing the trained labour force relates to the development of the country as a whole. Improving coherence of the quantity and the quality of technical and vocational training is a challenge in Ethiopia. Education has neither shaped nor corresponded to labour force needs or the requirements of industry and trade. On all levels of the educational system, education and training has little relevance to practice and context and to preparation for the workforce and employability. The main problems facing the current TVET programmes are: the range of occupational areas, trades, skills and knowledge covered by available training programmes is very limited; girls and women are underrepresented in training programmes, which is also due to the fact that existing provision mainly addresses typical male skills and occupations; and training provision for operating micro and small entrepreneurs and people in employment hardly exists.
Although Ethiopia is indicating progress towards the educational goals as defined by EFA and the ESDP, it is at a risk of not achieving the goals of primary access, gender equality, and educational quality within the desired timetable. Ethiopia is one of the poorest countries in the world, needing continuous support from foreign governments and NGOs in education for sustainable development. The focus should be on the removal of obstacles to educational access and on the promotion of the education of girls, teachertraining at all levels of education, and technical and vocational training. The relevance of technical and vocational education and training is a question critical to economic growth at the national level and to people’s well-being… continue reading >>>