This book discusses reforms that should be undertaken in secondary education to support Ethiopia s transition from a low- to middle-income economy. The most critical reform identified is the introduction of a flexible curriculum that serves the needs of all students, including those who may not pursue higher education.

This book is open access under a CC BY 4.0 license. This book presents insights into the lived realities of children with disabilities in primary schools in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. It examines specific cultural and societal characteristics of Ethiopia that influence the education of children with disabilities. The book presents findings drawn from interviews with, and participant observation of the schoolchildren, family members, teachers and other “experts”, and places these findings in a cultural-historical context. The multidimensional approach taken allows for, on the one hand, the provision of a historical grounding of the book, explaining the main historical junctures and their implications for education, and the discussion of the role of culture and society as barriers and facilitators of education. On the other hand, it gives the book a more personal angle, allowing the reader to gain insight into what it means to feel like a family, develop a sense of belonging, and tr ying to move toward educational equity.

This study provides a detailed snapshot of the education sector up to 2001-02, and for some aspects of the sector, up to 2002-03. It takes advantage of administrative data and information from household surveys to document key dimensions of the sector, particularly primary and secondary education, focusing on costs, finance, and service delivery, and their impact on learning achievement, in an effort to discover potentially important areas for further policy development. --foreword.

The main focus of the study is the deepening crisis of the Ethiopian education system. This study reconstructs the growth of the crisis of the sector during the last four decades. It then discusses the implications of the crisis in terms of communication breakdown; absence of analytical capacity at system level; the fragmentation of society; loss of political legitimacy and perpetuation of authoritarian power. Although the education sector has greatly expanded its impact on poverty alleviation has so far been insignificant. The poverty landscape has changed to the worse during the last fifty years. This is largely due to the fact that the Ethiopian education system is based on false premises. At the center of the crisis is the use of English as medium of instruction. The proficiency in English is so low that its continued use as a medium of instruction can only lead to the collapse of the education system. The study argues that it is only through language (readily understood and practiced) that collective life and the world can be interpreted in an integrated manner. The replacement of English by Ethiopian languages all the way from the primary to tertiary levels is one of the factors that could strengthen the survival potential of the Ethiopian political community. The study is relevant for policy makers and students of development studies on the role of education in social change in Africa south of the Sahara.

Only 20 per cent of the school-age population have access to primary education. Yet the majority of school leavers have few employment opportunities. The current and planned expansion of the formal education sector cannot be defended either on development or moral grounds since formal educational cannot fulfil the educational and developmental needs of the great majority of the population. This study attempts to explore an alternative strategy as regards expansion of literacy and the fulfilment of educational and developmental needs. This study argues that the strategy of non-formal education is in both cases a far better alternative.