Education and Training in Ethiopia An Evaluation of Approaching EFA Goals

SUMMARYJohanna Lasonen, Raija Kemppainen and Kolawole Raheem (2005) Education andTraining in Ethiopia: An Evaluation of Approaching EFA Goals. University ofJyväskylä. Institute for Educational Research. Working Papers 23.Ethiopia is the second most populous country in Sub-Saharan Africa after Nigeria. Ethiopiais ethnically and linguistically very diverse. The transitional legislature formally recognised64 major ethnic groups, and more than 250 distinct languages are know to be spoken inthe country. The main ethnic groups are the Oromo and the Amhara. Amharic is thelingua franca and English is the second de facto language of the state. Ethiopia is one ofthe poorest countries in the world.Access to education in Ethiopia is the most limited in the region. The illiteracy rate ishigh, approximately 70 per cent for females and 50 per cent for males. In 1997 theGovernment launched the Education Sector Development Project (ESDP), whose aimsinclude that of increasing school attendance among rural children and especially girls.Furthermore, Ethiopia is working towards achieving the EFA (Education For All) goals asdefined in the EFA Dakar Framework in 2000.The World Declaration of Education for All in Jomtien, Thailand in 1990 pointed outthat education is a fundamental right. The achievement of the EFA goals were to beevaluated through the EFA Dakar assessment. The EFA Dakar Framework focused on sixeducational goals: early childhood care and education; access to compulsory primaryeducation 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 genderdisparities in primary and secondary education by 2005 and achievement of genderequality in education by 2015; and improvement of all aspects of the quality of educationand achievement of learning outcomes, especially in literacy, numeracy and essential lifeskills. The Government of Ethiopia has adopted the goal of ensuring universal access toand 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 extentdo Ethiopian children have access to educational and training services? 2) To what extentdo women progress to primary, secondary and technical education? and 3) To what extentis the quality of education improving? These research questions were closely related to theEFA goals but expanded the scope of access and equality issues to cover secondaryeducation and technical and vocational education. Education and training have particularsignificance for the reduction of poverty and for strategies of gender equity because theystress the dimensions of opportunities, skills, human resources development and9