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This paper explores the evolution of higher education in Ethiopia, particularly through the lens of Addis Ababa University, which reflects a Western-influenced educational model. It highlights historical critiques concerning the neglect of traditional knowledge in favor of Eurocentric curricula and examines the impact of political contexts on the quality and nature of academic research. The analysis indicates a troubling trend toward homogenized scholarship focused on nation-building at the expense of critical thinking and genuine engagement with postcolonial studies.
Overview of the issue and its national/regional/international context This paper attempts to assess the impacts of Haile Selassie's educational policy on Ethiopia's educated elite. It also enquires into the reasons why the policy was adopted in the first place. The negative role that the Ethiopian educated elite has played during, and since, the overthrow of Haile Selassie's regime provides the context of the enquiry. Admittedly, the continuous political crises and economic stagnation of Ethiopia since the 1974 Revolution point to the leading role played by Ethiopian educated elite. The paper raises the question of knowing whether the adoption of an education system that completely relied on Western teaching staff and curriculum -and systematically turned its back on Ethiopian legacy -does or does not explain the infatuation of Ethiopian students and intellectuals with Marxism-Leninism in the 1960s and 1970s. The suggestion is that their propensity to opt for polarizing and confrontational methods of political competition may be the result of a decentering education system responsible for cultural cracks into which radical ideas, which were then in vogue, were injected. The enquiry unravels two major reasons for the adoption of the educational policy: (i) Haile Selassie and his close associates had basically endorsed the colonial idea according to which non-Western societies were backward, thereby conceiving of modernization as the internalization of Western values and institutions; (ii) Haile Selassie was all the more willing to push for Westernization as the marginalization of Ethiopia's traditional values and institutions was the sine qua non for the establishment of his autocratic rule.
2006
This paper attempts to assess the impacts of Haile Selassie’s educational policy on Ethiopia’s educated elite. It also inquires into the reasons the policy was adopted in the first place. The negative role that the Ethiopian educated elite has played during, and since, the overthrow of Haile Selassie’s regime provides the context of the inquiry. Admittedly, the continuous political crises and economic stagnation of Ethiopia since the 1974 Revolution point to the leading role played by Ethiopian educated elite. The paper raises the question of knowing whether the adoption of an education system that completely relied on Western teaching staff and curriculum – and systematically turned its back on Ethiopian legacy – does or does not explain the infatuation of Ethiopian students and intellectuals with Marxism-Leninism in the 1960s and 1970s. The suggestion is that their propensity to opt for polarizing and confrontational methods of political competition may be the result of a decenter...
Focusing on modern-day political provisions that are imposed on higher education, I will give a brief overview for an otherwise broad and contentious issue; the contemporary challenges of present-day higher education, and particularly higher education in Addis Ababa University (AAU).
Research Article , 2024
This paper attempts at reconstructing the history of the Faculty of Education of Addis Ababa University until 1974. It records the development of the faculty since its inception in careful detail, with due attention to major events, organizational adjustments, and educational reforms that marked its path. The analysis explores how the Faculty of Education adapted to Ethiopia's changing social and political landscape, illustrating its crucial role in influencing the nation's educational system. Key contributions of the faculty to teacher training, curriculum development, and educational policy form a core component of this study. It also reviews the various phases of development, challenges faced in the initial years, strategies adopted to overcome them, and how these moves impacted the greater schema of education. It develops a comprehensive account of how internal and external challenges were responded to by the faculty through the examination of archival documents and primary sources, and how such reactions shaped its evolving role. The narrative also highlights the interplay between the Faculty's development and broader historical trends, such as political shifts, educational reforms, and societal changes. This contextualization underscores how the Faculty's efforts were intertwined with national developments and global educational movements. The study not only offers a detailed historical account but also provides valuable insights into the institution's successes and struggles, offering a foundation for understanding its subsequent evolution. This comprehensive exploration aims to contribute to a deeper appreciation of the Faculty of Education's formative years and its lasting impact on Ethiopia's educational landscape.
African Journal of History and Culture, 2015
This paper tries to show the evolutionary development of education in Ethiopia along with its historic dysfunctions on the prospect of social transformation. The historical backdrop that centered on traditional educational system, which was predominantly ecclesiastical, is also briefly outlined for the sake of coherent understanding of the link and the miss-link in the educational system of the country. Ethiopia had started indigenized education in the Pre-Christian Eraatin Aksum as we witnessed it from local tradition. However, systematized ecclesiastical traditional education enshrined following the adoption of Christianity and the rise of Islam. These Educational institutions were not bereft of scientific thinking in their essence as in the usually discourse. But due to this misconception, in late 19thcentury they had given way for the newly inaugurated western school system initiated by missionaries who plan to use it for religious proselytizing. Thus, Ethiopia had imported western education by sidelining its traditional education system instead of creating at least a synthesis. Therefore, the country failed to create a uniquely Ethiopian system of education. Hence, the educational system was de-Ethiopianized or de-Africanized and thereby produced intellectual dependency and mind colonization that triggers many social evils as it has been witnessed since 1960s. Thus, this paper attempts to show how the conviction of being tabula rasa, otherwise called a zero beginning, for the commencement of modern education in Ethiopia served for colonization of the non-colonized state and polarized mindset among its citizens.
2018
Higher education institutions in Ethiopia are expanding in diversity of fields they offer to students at the undergraduate and graduate levels. The opening and internationalization of new programs mostly responds to the demands of market forces on the one hand and the prospect of employability in the national and global market on the other as perceived by incoming students. Accordingly, curricula are mostly shaped by the interests of national and global market forces. While this is necessary to a certain extent, the need to make sure that graduates have a well-balanced regional and international outlook that goes beyond too immediate priorities of market forces should be well kept in mind by higher education program developers and curriculum designers. One issue often raised by Ethiopian scholars and others in relation to the narrow outlook of most Ethiopian higher education graduates is the fact that they are mostly unaware of (or alien to) the lives, aspirations, struggles, dreams...
2016
Education in Ethiopia in general and Higher Education in particular is infected with a plague. It is essential to figure out the nature of the plague, diagnose it and find a remedy for it. The manner education is used to further political leftism (control) is the core of the matter. This article is set out to question the educational policy, rules and its implementation.
This article briefly introduces the phases of education in Ethiopia in the last 150 years and the impact of traditional institutions on languages. The intention of this report is to present the background section of a PhD (Gemechis, 2020) defended at Ghent University in September 2020. It is believed that the period of modern education in Ethiopia is shorter when compared with that of traditional education, which lasted for more than a century. Modern or "Western" education was launched in 1908, and Western educational ideas have flourished since the early twentieth century; but the traditional approach characterised Ethiopian education throughout the history of this ancient nation (Hoot, Szente and Mebratu, 2004). This article aims to review the past 150 years of education in Ethiopia in connection with historical trends and the influence of traditional institutions on education in general and languages in particular. Respondents discuss the fact that that, unlike the Orthodox and Missionary churches in Ethiopia, some of the traditional institutions such as the Waaqqeffannaa
Research, 2019
The major purpose of this review was to contribute to the improvement of the current and future practices in the education system through gaining lessons from the previous strengths and weaknesses. To attain this aim, the researcher reviewed as many materials as possible regarding the phenomena of education in Ethiopia. Thus, the lessons gained from the review were summarized under three themes. First, in each of the phases of the education systems, there were discerned aims of education which were associated to the views of the respective systems of governance. Secondly, expansion of education was forced by the education aims as a result of which it was succeeded with relative improvement during the successive governances. Access to education was the foremost strength among the phenomena of education in Ethiopia mainly during the Federal System of Governance. Thirdly, each of the phases of development of the education systems exhibited its respective limitations. However, the problem of quality of education was common to all the systems of governance. Thus, based on this analytical review of the literatures, the researcher suggested that relevant studies need be conducted in order to mitigate the problem of quality of education in Ethiopia.
Cahiers d'Études Africaines, 2022
Vivre avec les dieux. Sur le terrain de l'anthropologie visuelle. Blanc Guillaume. L'invention du colonialisme vert. Pour en finir avec le mythe de l'Éden africain. Broqua Christophe (dir.). Se mobiliser contre le sida en Afrique. Sous la santé globale, les luttes associatives. Choplin Armelle. Matières grises de l'urbain. La vie du ciment en Afrique. Comberiati Daniele, Lounes-Vona Rosaria & Halen Pierre (dir.). Des Italiens au Congo aux Italiens du Congo : aspects d'une glocalité. Drewes Abraham J. Recueil des inscriptions de l'Éthiopie des périodes pré-axoumite et axoumite, Tome III-Traductions et commentaires. B. Les inscriptions sémitiques.
2018
In the context of ‘imported’ educational models, repressive political regimes, unaddressed structural factors of educational inequality, high adult illiteracy, poorly prepared university entrants, and under-qualified teaching staff, it is improbable that a HE system could make a meaningful contribution towards the knowledge-driven poverty reduction agenda. This is mainly because it is hard to get the ‘right’ knowledge that drives innovation, productivity, and growth and, under a state of fear and control, people’s creativity and active engagement in development processes is circumscribed. In the Ethiopian case, as the HE system has been built on poorly aligned imported models of curricular and pedagogic practices, learning and knowledge creation have been detached from the rich cultural and social context—including the centuries-old traditional education systems of the country. This reliance on imported models and expertise might have negatively affected the possibility of shaping the system with a particular national identity and building an intellectual community that could sense the closer context and produce, organize, and disseminate knowledge applicable to the real problems in the society.
There is a massive higher education expansion in Ethiopia. However, the efforts to expand higher education are characterized by great opportunities and significant challenges. The current higher education policy formulation and practice are the result of long history of traditional education in Ethiopia, the western countries' influence and the current opportunities and challenges observed in the sector. Thus, to formulate and enact workable higher education policy in Ethiopia, one must understand the trends of higher education in Ethiopia with emphasis on purposes, challenges and achievements. The article, therefore, tries to pinpoint the history of Ethiopian higher education and concludes with recommendations for current efforts to improve higher education in the country.
Ufahamu a Journal of African Studies, 1996
Despite the fact that Ethiopia has a long and rich tradition of indigenous philosophy and education that could have been a solid foundation for its development and modern education like for example, the case in East Asia, however, it had simply assimilated the Western system of education instead of integrating the important cultural and philosophical values with the new education system. At least to me, therefore, there seem cultural metamorphoses caused by Western-oriented modern education and a consequent emerging confusion of the Ethiopian youth as far as identity formation is concerned.
Ethiopian e-Journal for Research and Innovation Foresight (Ee-JRIF), 2006
The opinions expressed in this volume are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Nordiska Afrikainstitutet.
2016
This paper tried to show how the Ethiopian educational system was sidelined in favor of western system of education, and it calls for the need for re-Ethiopianising it. In the analysis of the historical evolution of the educational system in Ethiopia , we can witness about the existence of indigenous educational system that had left its imprints in the socioeconomic and political facades of the Ethiopian society. However, the system was eventually superseded by religious schools (church schools, mission schools, Quranic schools" and finally by western schools under the guise of modernization. Due to the quest for absorbing western modern values, in the late 19 th century western school system initiated by missionaries who plan to use it for religious proselytizing became dominant. Thus, Ethiopia had imported western education by sidelining its traditional education system instead of creating at least a synthesis. Therefore, the country failed to create a uniquely Ethiopian system of education. Hence, the educational system was de-Ethiopianised and thereb y produced intellectual dependency that triggers many social evils and served for colonization of the non-colonized state.
The Ethiopian Journal of Education, 1996
2012
Ethiopia has gone through the implementation of dif ferent educational philosophies, which range from idealism to modernism by answering the above q u stions differently at different times. The area of engagement has also been diverse. At the be ginning, learners were prepared for church and mosque services. Learners used to focus on acqu iring readymade ideas and beliefs of the church and mosque curricula. In other words, they w re not active learners. Then, there were shifts of ideologies from idealism to existentialis m, modernism and progressivism, and side by side the nature of students’ engagement also change s in line with the enacted educational philosophies.
The intention of this manuscript is to overview the development of Ethiopian Education from Early to Modern schooling. Opportunities and challenges regarding education quality and access in Ethiopia are concerned under the study. The researcher used descriptive research design and qualitative research methods. Manuscript review (policy document , researches, historical literatures and different statistics) , focus group discussion with 120 PGDT(Postgraduate Diploma In Secondary School Teaching) student-teachers and summer In-service students and interview conducted with 10 secondary school directors and observation was the viable instrument. The information thematised and analyzed qualitatively through narration and explanation. Recently, Ethiopia score tremendous expansion in primary and secondary as well as Higher Education. However, the fact that a large majority of the Ethiopian population lives in rural areas still lack of equitable access, equity and quality of education, organization of the school system and of the relevance of the curriculum needs revision. The findings disclose that in the last ten years Multi-million children obtain the opportunity to primary and secondary education in Ethiopia. The number of teachers and institution significantly increased. However, problem in securing standardization and quality assurance, low incentive, crowded classroom, teacher high turnover, poor school leadership, " banking " methods of teaching and poor commitments of teachers towards their profession still the major bottleneck. Therefore, system based emphasis to capacity building program for teacher and leaders, fulfillment and equitable distribution of educational logistics, modernizing methods of teaching, standardizing curriculum, assessment and quality assurance strategies required.
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