It is crystal clear that education is an instrument to bring about change in all aspects particularly fast economic and social well being. And it is essential to transform the living standard of the society to a higher level. Cognizant of this fact, the government of Ethiopia has been implementing various activities. As both FDRE Constitution and Education and Training Policy underline that education is the right to all citizens, the country has focused on the sector more than anything else. In doing so, it is becoming possible to enhance participation of states, development partners, other stakeholders and the society at large thereby to ensure access to education equity and access.

In the previous periods, access to education was very limited and had served only elite group. And all the schools had opened around cities. And the situation was not a fertile ground to farmers and pastoral communities. And hence, these people were forced to sent their children to cities and exposed to extra financial expense for covering everything including school fee to their children. Hence, those were from poor family could not got opportunity to attend schools. For this to happen, the following are the major reasons:

* Unfair distribution: In states, there had been huge educational enrolment difference between rural and urban areas, male and female students and among various nation and nationalities. For example; in Afar, Gambela, Benshangul-Gumuz, Somali states, there had not been educational opportunity above primary school level. In other states, there had been secondary schools accessibility at district or ‘Awraga’ level.

* Lack of appropriateness: When the Emperor Haile-Selassie regime was removed from power in 1974, the number of elementary schools (1-6) was only 2,754 and the number of students was 859,831. The number of secondary schools and students there was 420 and 31,296 respectively. During the time of the Derg, in 1989/90 academic year, the number of elementary school students was 2,855,800.

Following the nonparticipating policy of the Derg regime, not only were children denied access to basic education but also a number of schools were demolished because of the war that was raging in different parts of the country. One of the characteristics of the Derg was its spending spree on armaments, rather than expanding schools and equipping them with the required facilities and books.

Surprisingly, in the period between 1987 and 1991, only 8.94 per cent of the annual budget was allocated for education. According to Education Minister Demeke Mekonnen, though education had said to be given, in previous two regimes, it did not consider the then need of the country and intertwine with societal interest. Most of the time, it focused on theoretical aspects and had not set a target to bring all-rounded student development. Furthermore, all the curriculum are copied from foreign countries and managed by inconsistent directives. The teaching methodology was also focused on theoretical and teacher-oriented as a result of which it denied students participation, he added.

When the education and training policy is designed, the incumbent government has been probe the aforementioned multifaceted problems which had been rolling from one regime to the other. Next to this, the government has addressed problems related to education system and analyzed different options to develop education systems and enable it to play a great role in socio-economic development.

At all levels, research and studies have been underway to create a platform and discussion forum with various stakeholders working on the area. The education and training policy which has been implemented since 1987 E.C identified and solved these multifaceted problems by designing various strategies and Educational Sector Development Programmes easy to implement it.

After EPRDF came to power, it has designed strategies to develop various sectors by taking best practices from other countries into account. Various Strategies and education sector development programmes have also been prepared based on Education and Training Policy of the country. From the very beginning, some people criticised the policy. For example, in 1986 E.C, ‘Mebreq’ private owned Amharic newspaper wrote a piece criticizing education and training policy under the title ‘A journey from basic education to illiteracy’. It says, ”Pay your tuition fee’ from where the poor people could born the money”.Besides, the newspaper also reported about teachers’ association saying, “The association protested the so called new education and training policy which was ratified by the council of ministers and reflected its firm stances.’ But now, the country has been registering remarkable results in primary, secondary and tertiary education implementing that policy.

“Encouraging results have been registered and received appreciation from the world. The amazing part is, the education system was in a very critical condition. But, the re-organization process of education system has taken short period of time. From this one can easily learn that the current education and training policy of the country is correct and does not need other options,” Demeke noted.

Kindergarten education
Kindergarten education is critical and has great contribution to prepare children to regular education. And, it is also helpful to raise their academic capacity through pre-school education. Besides, kindergarten education is vital to develop knowledge, skill and attitude of children. It is also instrumental in building their capacity, pre-school education would help decline primary school dropouts.

According to unpublished document of the Ministry of Education, though there isn’t enough public awareness on the importance of pre-school education, its development nationwide is very rife. It has shown change. For instance, in 1994 E.C, some 341,315 children were enrolled in kindergarten education. Of which, 118,986 were male and the rest 165,738 were female. But, when we see the result in the year 2003 E.C. 382,741 children enrolled to K.G. Of which 197,671 male and 185,070 female.

Being compared with the country’s population growth, a lot remains to be done regarding the sector. There are some reasons for this to happen; the government is focused on the expansion of primary education. Because it has limited capacity, expansion of pre-school education is left to private sectors. And they are limited in cities and provide some segments of the society who have financial capacity to pay school fees with education service. As a result, a number of children are enrolled to schools without attending pre-school education.

According to recent studies from regions, farmers are benefited from economic development which the country has been registered for eight successive years and promising economic development has been witnessed. Though farmers have financial capacity to send their children to kindergarten, they have no access to pre-school institutions around. This condition has influenced the achievement of school education.

Those who lost kindergarten education have not a capacity of intertwining themselves with education and incapable to full-fill various skills that is required by first cycle students like; reading, writing and others.

According to Demeke Mekonnen to expand pre-school education in the rural areas, on the one hand, the government has encouraged private owners to further development of kindergartens and it has established pre-school institutions which will be under the leadership and ownership of the society and enrol the children on the other. In addition, the government has prepared pre-school education policy, strategies and implementation directives.

Primary school education
In 1986 E.C via the newly designed education training policy, the modern education has helped the nation solve complicated problems. Within a few years, the well crafted strategies concerning the education sector have enabled the society to actively participate in the education expansion programme and have registered encouraging results thereby to ensure access to education. For example, in 1994 E.C first cycle education enrolment has reached to 61.6 per cent. And the number of students was 8,144,337. But in 2003, education enrolment has reached to 96.4 per cent i.e, the number of students grew up to 16,757,608. Of which 8,791,149 are male and 7,966,459 are female students.

Since Ethiopia emerged from 16 years of civil war in 1991, access to education has significantly improved. Approximately 3 million pupils were in primary school in 1994/95; by 2010/11, a total of primary school enrolment has raised to 16.7 million. This indicates an increase of over 500 per cent.

”To ensure education equity and narrow the wide gap between rural and urban, the government has made some correction in various states and make the number of male and female students proportional. On top of this, the government has been striving to change attitude of the public towards education via awareness raising programmes. And it has gained positive reaction especially from the people who live in rural and pastoralism areas of the country,” Demeke noted.

Secondary school education
The government has been given priority for the expansion of primary education. Parallel to this, it has evaluated secondary education as per the strategies and goals set and encouraging results are registered. The government has been given especial emphasis to develop secondary education enrolment especially in tertiary education development programme. As a result, various schools are opened by fulfilling necessary equipments.

Benefiting from sustained growth, the Ethiopian government, in partnership with donors, has invested heavily in improving access to education. Key measures have been included such as abolishing school fees, increasing expenditure on school construction and maintenance and hiring and training thousands of new teachers, administrators and officials. This has been complemented by a shift to mother tongue instruction and by the gradual decentralization of the education system to progressively lower administrative levels. This has likely contributed to improved service delivery.

Ethiopia’s progress in education demonstrates that a sustained government-led effort to reduce poverty and expand the public education system equitably, backed by sufficient resources and improved service delivery, can dramatically increase school enrolment. Secondary school enrolment also grown more than fivefold during this period.

The number of secondary schools has increased from 835 to 1517 from 1998 E.C to 2003 E.C. In the same period, the number of teachers has increased to 52,731. The education gap between rural and urban areas has declined without hunched urban enrolment.

The government has prepared secondary education strategy to make it easily accessible to the society. And it has set goals to reach secondary education to all citizens by the year 2012 E.C. Based on this, in 1994 E.C., secondary school education (9th and 10th) totalled to 17.1 per cent and the number of students was 512,327. But in 2003 E.C, 9th and 10th grader students numbered 1,461,918. Of which 807,251 were male and 654,667 were female. Total education enrolment has reached to 38.4 per cent. In preparatory education (11th to 12th) enrolment has reached 13.2 per cent. Some 288,216 students are attend their education. Of which, 169,571 are male and the rest 118,645 are female.

Secondary education is not expanded arbitrarily. It should be designed to satisfy economic, political and social need of the country by producing medium and higher level professionals. After implementing the plan, 80 per cent of students can attend in TVET education to be medium professionals and the rest 20 per cent of students are engaged in preparatory schools to prepare themselves to higher education.

Higher education
Earlier, institutions of higher learning were given the least attention. The distribution of institutions and the preparation of curriculum was not carried out in line with the political and economic needs of the country too. The old training policy failed to encourage research and innovation.

There were only two universities until very recently; their number has now risen to thirty one or so. And the government has been striving to raise thirty three until the end of 2007 E.C.

Ten years ago, student intake capacity of universities under the Ministry of Education stood at 3,000. This academic year, it has grown to 95,000 – a staggering increase.

The government is exerting efforts to remove the discriminatory distribution of higher institutions. According to Demeke, the government, as part of its plan to increase the distribution of higher learning institutions over the next five years, will construct 11 new universities and upgrade 2 existing universities, to upgrade student enrolment to 467,000.

The government is working to use every resource at its disposal to improve national infrastructure to bring about a nationwide transformation. “The government believes that capacity building and infrastructural improvement is vital for the successful implementation of the ongoing development programme, which will help promote peace and democracy. Solving the problems that undermine the expansion and modernization of the education system in the country needs to be top on agenda to make a difference, Demeke noted.

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*Originally published on the Ethiopian Herald on May 26, titled ‘Ethiopian education: From crisis to brink of alteration’, authored by Girmachew Gashaw.

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