The Root Cause of Poor Quality of Education in
Ethiopia: an Elephant in the Room
By
Concerned Educators[*]
June
2015
Introduction
Since the introduction of
modern education in Ethiopia, Ethiopians have recognized the need to improve
the quality of education. Ethiopians
have never been, however, as concerned about the poor quality of education in
Ethiopia as today. The cycle of poor
quality education and its ripple effects are looming dangers for Ethiopia. The problem is systemic and mainly
intentionally induced. Addressing this
issue should be one of the top priorities for Ethiopians and those international
organizations funding the education sector in Ethiopia. The crux of this analysis is to identify the
root cause of the poor quality of education.
Quality
of Education
One cannot talk about
quality of education without taking into account the ultimate and legitimate
stakeholders of education and the problem that the education system is
established to solve. The stakeholders
are those for whom the education sector is established to serve. Quality of education refers to the level of
satisfaction of the stakeholders with the education provided. A quality of a product or service differs
depending on the customers’ or stakeholders’ needs or demands. Schools and colleges can be seen as service
providers. The quality goal is about why
we do what we are supposed to be doing.
Therefore, it is the value added as a result of learning which creates
satisfaction of the ultimate stakeholders or meets their needs or
expectations.
It is widely believed, in
principle, that an education system in any country is designed to serve the
learners, the parents of the students, the employers of the school graduates,
the public at large, and eventually the nation.
The benefits of quality education also transcend national boundaries and
help to make our world a better and peaceful place. The teachers, faculty, administrators, and
staff also have a stake in the quality of education, as they are the major role
players, to enhance the quality of education.
The ultimate goal is why we need education, or what are the changes of
condition we want to achieve through education.
In Ethiopia, however, there is deliberate mismatch between the needs of
the stakeholders and what the government is accomplishing through the public
education.
Quality
of Education to the EPRDF Regime
In the Ethiopian context,
most of schools, colleges, and universities are funded and operated by the
government. The Ethiopian Peoples’
Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) dictates how the school and university
systems should be organized and administered.
The dictatorial regime assumes to be the sole stakeholder of the
education sector in the country. Then
the functions of the schools and colleges have become serving only the
interests and accomplishing the goals of the single political party that has
been in power since 1991. EPRDF is using
educational institutions to propagate its party ideology and to achieve
narrowly focused and partisan goals.
Getting what the despotic regime wants, however, does not necessarily
mean getting what Ethiopians need.
The government is not
focused on and accountable for what matters to the primary stakeholders. Those who should have been legitimate
stakeholders of education, such as students, parents, employers, teachers,
faculty, and the taxpayer citizens, are excluded from the decision-making
process. As the famous educator Paulo Freire proclaimed, “Any situation in which some individuals
prevent others from engaging in the process of inquiry is one of violence. The means used are not important; to alienate
human beings from their own decision-making is to change them into
objects.” The rulers implemented a
top-down approach in the hasty development of education and
training policy, the curriculum design, the expansion and opening of
schools and universities, the organization of educational institutions, the
staffing of the schools, and the appointment of educational leaders. For the dictatorial regime, as has become
evident in its practice, quality education is that which creates loyalty to the
tyrants and which satisfies its political motives regardless of the needs of
students, parents, employers, and citizens.
As Human Right
Watch reported, to access
public sector jobs and services, EPRDF party membership is a necessary
condition. While in college, students
are required to be EPRDF members; otherwise they will not be given employment
opportunities in the public sectors.
What matters for the regime is not their academic excellence, technical
competencies, or ethical behavior. The
most important of all is blind loyalty to the Tigray People Liberation Front
(TPLF), which was formerly known as Marxist-Leninist League Tigray (MLLT). Loyalty
to TPLF is the most important criterion on the demand side of the government
dominated job market in Ethiopia. The
schools and colleges are forced to meet this demand of the regime and to make
it their priority task.
The regime controls the
land, which is the livelihood of Ethiopian subsistence farmers and the source
of wealth in the cities. The TPLF and its army-owned conglomerates control the businesses. The qualities required by the government, who
is the major employment provider, are conforming to the following demands of TPLF: obedience,
unquestioning loyalty to TPLF, and mediocrity.
These are not the critical skills and competencies needed by the
majority of Ethiopians, who represent the legitimate and ultimate stakeholders
of education. The role of education
should be beyond serving the interest of tyrants.
The current education
system is organized to create a dependency syndrome. It is producing youth that can easily be
manipulated by TPLF cadres and who always depend on the party for their
livelihood. These are the goals that the
regime has been working to achieve; and these are what the schools and colleges
are set up by the government to accomplish.
Thus, these are the tacit output measures of the education sector for
the sole stakeholder of education, the tyrannical regime. No matter what changes are made on the input
side, these quality goals of the regime drive every other activity, such as
hiring teachers, designing curriculum, and appointing educational leaders. TPLF eliminates those who recognize and try
to address this problem.
Education
to Silence Citizens
Any normal human being
understands the power of education.
Education transforms lives positively.
Education is key to fight poverty and ignorance. Education is power. Education liberates the human mind and
empowers individuals and nations. One of
the most important tools that frees us from the shackles of tyranny is quality
education. Good education helps to
develop ethical behavior. Quality
education raises active civic participation and fosters dialogue on various
issues that affect the lives of citizens.
Quality education also helps to build strong and peaceful country where
democratic rights are exercised and the rule of law is respected. The Ethiopian education and
training policy stipulates that
one of its objectives is “to provide education that can produce citizens who
stand for democratic unity, liberty, equality, dignity, and justice, and who
are endowed with moral values.” What we
see in practice, however, is quite the opposite.
The education system is being used to
inculcate party ideology, terrorize the young generation, and suppress freedom
of thinking. The education system has
been used to silence dissent in Ethiopia more than ever. Professor Donald Levine
eloquently addressed the issue of academic freedom in Ethiopia. The initial motto of the Haile Selassie I
University, was from 1 Thessalonians 5:21, “… ሁሉን
ፈትኑ መልካሙን ያዙ
" “...test everything that is said. Hold on to what is good." The university that started in 1950 with this
motto, making academic freedom its priority, is now depriving students,
teachers, and faculty of their God-given right to freely think and express
their ideas. Teachers and faculty who
are critical of the government’s misguided policy and who stood for academic
freedom are fired from their jobs. Students
who oppose the divide-and-rule policy of the regime are killed.
The crackdown on those who express dissent
has continued since the government security forces fired on unarmed Addis Ababa
University students on January 4, 1993.
Subsequently, the regime fired 42 Addis Ababa University professors. The reason given by the then Minister of
Education, Gunet Zewdie, for dismissing the professors, was that the faculty
were incompetent. On the contrary, the
dismissed faculty were among the finest Ethiopian scholars the country
had. Recently, she repeated her
allegation saying that they were “unfit”.
For her and the regime, intellectuals who are not in lockstep with TPLF
policy are not qualified to teach and to conduct research. Many of the dismissed faculty left the
country; they are serving other countries while Ethiopia is suffering from lack
of academicians. The government security
forces also assassinated the vocal Acting Director of Ethiopian Teachers’ Union
Assefa Maru
in the daylight on May 8, 1997 in Addis Ababa.
The accomplished surgeon Professor Asrat Woldeyes
languished in TPLF prison and died. The
President of Ethiopian Teachers' Association (ETA), Dr. Taye Woldesemayat,
suffered for 6 years in the notorious prison and left the country. Teachers
who are critical of EPRDF or who are members of opposition party risk their
lives and live under constant threat and they are gripped by fear.
As Amnesty International
reported, “The government used multiple channels and methods to enforce
political control on the population, including politicizing access to job and
education opportunities and development assistance, and high levels of physical
and technological surveillance.” The
repression of teachers by EPRDF reached to the level that causes
self-immolation. As Bloomberg
recently reported a teacher named Getahun Abraham whose application for
transfer to another school was rebuffed by the government because of his
membership in the opposition party doused himself in gasoline and set himself
on fire to death in the government office compound. The note he left behind reads, “being in
politics shouldn’t get you punished this much.”
In November 2011, BBC reported
that another teacher, Yenesew Gebre, self-immolated and did the same protesting
the ongoing crackdown on dissent.
Following the 2005 election, the TPLF
security force massacred 193 peaceful protestors,
in Addis Ababa ordered
by the late Prime Minster Meles Zenawi.
During the crackdown on student protestors at Ambo University, in May
2014, BBC reported
that a witness in Ambo saw more than 20 bodies on the street, while Voice of America (VOA)
reported that at least 17 protesters were killed. Recently, three outspoken faculty, Professor
Merara Gudina, Dr. Kassahun Berhanu and Dr. Dagnachew Assefa, were forced to
leave their teaching job at Addis Ababa University. Many experienced faculty and researchers in
the higher learning institutions are leaving the profession because of the grim
working conditions and lack of academic freedom. For instance, the faculty at the College of
Health Sciences, Addis Ababa University, stay on the job on average for only
4.9 years.
The circumstances in
schools in smaller cities and rural villages are worse. The minds of Ethiopian students, teachers,
and faculty are imprisoned. This
ultimately stifles civic participation and creates an environment of fear where
dictators manipulate the citizens.
Teachers and students are always under surveillance. For the rulers, the purpose of education is
to create a generation that does not question authority and that worships the
dictators as divine powers. TPLF suspended
students’
government. The regime is using education to create a
culture of submission, fear and silence so that the citizens cannot challenge
the status quo. TPLF manages to do this
because it controls every sector of the economy, the land, and government
agencies. It is the major employer of
school leavers; and the youth are at the mercy of TPLF dictators.
In Ethiopia - one of the top jailers of independent
journalists, where there is no free
press, where internet and foreign media are censored and spied by the government, where civic
organizations are barred - at least
schools and colleges should have been places for free expression of ideas. Students and teachers are organized in what
is called one-to-five spying cells and they are forced to be TPLF informants
and spy on one
another. Student and teachers are muzzled. Imprisoning the minds of young Ethiopians and
restrictions
on freedom of expression have far-reaching
effects. The scariest thing is such a
tyrannical system creates a young generation that does not know how to settle
difference peacefully and that tends to turn to violent approaches when the
dictators are removed. This ultimately
endangers the existence of peaceful and united Ethiopia.
While suppressing any
dissent, modeling itself after Chinese Communist Party, the TPLF leaders tell
citizens that what Ethiopians deserve is “revolutionary democracy”; thereby the
rulers always decide what is good for the citizens. The citizens do not decide for themselves. The authoritarian EPRDF recently claimed to have won every single parliamentary
seat. In spite of this fact, some foreign diplomats like
the US State Department’s undersecretary of state for political affairs, Ms. Wendy
Sherman, turns a blind eye to the repressions and declares
that, “Ethiopia is a democracy.” The
Ethiopian government’s argument is that the public is not conscious enough to
exercise its right. This is an insult to
Ethiopia - one of the ancient nations and that has a long-lived tradition of
leadership and conflict resolution practices.
The rulers also try to justify their suppression by claiming that they
are providing access to education to the disadvantaged parts of the country and
reaching the millennium goals.
Access
without Success
The regime is boosting
the number of schools, colleges, enrollments, and college graduates partly due
to external demands by the funding agencies.
The number of schools and colleges has increased and the government has
been receiving foreign aid to expand access and at the same time to reward its
cronies with lucrative business deals, such as construction. Access to education without success is for
political consumption and to get foreign aid.
Ethiopia is the second top
development aid recipient in Africa. From 2011 to 2013, Ethiopia received 10.62
billion dollar official development assistance (ODA), which is more than what
the previous military regime received in 17 years. This amount is more than the total federal
government’s annual budget. The more
repressive the government becomes, the more aid it is getting. The party loyalists are embezzling the fund
and enriching themselves. In the past,
Ethiopian budget year alone, from the budget allocated to federal institutions,
over two billion Birr remained unaccounted. Most of the
misappropriation is done in the Ministry of Education and public
universities.
The regime admits that the quality of education
is deteriorating because of the
expansion. The World Bank also confirms this.
However, the rulers and funding agencies do not try to identify the root
cause of the problem. Along with the
increased emphasis on quantity, there has not been increased and genuine
interest in assessing the performance of the schools and colleges to enhance
quality. The government has established
the Higher Education Relevance and Quality Agency (HERQA). This agency is not independent to critically
evaluate the quality of education in Ethiopia.
“It exists in
name only”. It is established to justify the claims of
TPLF. According to Dr. Philip
Rayner and Professor Kate Ashcroft,
who served as management advisors to the Minister of Education and the State
Minister for Higher Education, HERQA’s evaluation or audit reports are not
public. Thus, Ethiopian taxpayers do not
have access to the documents and do not know the performance or standards of
the colleges and universities.
The international
agencies such as British Department of International Development, World Bank
and USAID that are funding the education sector are not truly committed to
improving the quality of education, which is empowering individuals and the
nation. They are rather overly focused
on easily measurable quantitative indicators such as enrollments, number of
graduates, number of schools and colleges, and other input variables. They have not had the courage to see the
qualitative measures, such as focus on ultimate stakeholders’ needs, teaching
learning process, academic rigor, qualification of teachers and administrators,
academic freedom, institutional autonomy, motivation and commitment of teachers
and faculty, transparency, accountability, ethics, academic integrity,
satisfaction of stakeholders, and most importantly, student learning outcomes
or evidence of students’ learning. A
comprehensive study conducted on
Ethiopian higher education found out that the major problems were lack of
institutional autonomy and the use of political criteria by the government to
control the institutions. “Ethiopia’s
political landscape remains a minefield for education professionals”. What is the
merit of giving more access if the educational institutions are used to
suppress the fundamental human rights of the participants and teachers? The educational institutions are rather
serving the regime as a large prison system to quash any dissent and critical
thinking.
What is the worth of
educational credentials awarded by the colleges and universities if they are
not ultimately improving the lives of the graduates and the public? The colleges are preparing youth to enter the
world of unemployment and underemployment.
The Voice of America (VOA) Amharic Service on April 24, 2015, conducted
an interview with Getachew Hadish, Daniel Hadish’s older brother. According to Getachew Hadish, Daniel Hadish,
who graduated a year ago with a Computer Science degree from Jima University
and who was heinously murdered by the terrorist ISIL in Libya, said, “I am
unsuccessful here [in Ethiopia], I decided to leave the country; I have
received the degree, but as you can see, it is worthless.” What is the value of a college education for
a needy Ethiopian if it is not preparing the graduate for a gainful employment?
The
Regime Deliberately Driving Down the Quality of Education
For political gains, the current
regime in Ethiopia is systematically and strategically driving the quality of
education down. The massification of
education is to produce party loyalists, to please the donor organizations and
it is for political consumption. “A lot of the time the universities
are merely shells. They do not function
as universities as we would expect and are poorly resourced, and in some cases
shoddily built. It would seem that they
are built almost as a token where the EPRDF can say to hostile regions ‘look we
are doing something for you, we’ve built a university’.” The regime is only interested in increasing
enrollment and count of institutions.
These are the metrics of success for EPRDF. Other quality indicators, such as preparation
for career and further studies, and others like acquisition of critical skills
that the students need for life, are not the focus of the regime. The metrics set by the regime drive what the
students, the educational institutions and their leaders must focus on. As Dan Ariely
put it, “if we want to change what they
[leaders of organizations] care about, we should change what we measure.… Human
beings adjust behavior based on the metrics they’re held against. Anything you measure will impel a person to
optimize his score on that metric. What
you measure is what you’ll get.” The
TPLF-led EPRDF is getting what it wants: mere increase in enrollment and count
of educational institutions. The
rhetoric about quality education by the regime is a hypocrisy.
The TPLF leaders have a double
standard on quality of education. It is
widely believed that the EPRDF rulers understand the potential of quality
education and the capacity of educated citizens. Vitiating the quality of education by EPRDF
is not because the rulers do not know the benefits of education, or it is not
because they are so ignorant. It is not
to give access to the underserved or disadvantaged Ethiopians either. What the regime is doing is a discriminatory
and intentional act. Good education
enables students to be creative, innovative, and resilient. The top rulers personally know that providing
quality education, given a level playing field, empowers individuals and could
potentially give the individuals the upper hand in the competitive world. The tyrants recognize that well educated
citizens can be threats to their absolute power.
One of the evidences for
this deliberate act is that, recognizing the power of education, TPLF
established some selective model schools in the areas it favors. The rulers are sending their children to
elite and expensive universities abroad.
The cases in point are the children of Meles Zenawi, Aboy Sibhat, Gunet
Zewdie, Hailemariam Desalegn, etc. The
TPLF rulers are sending their children to American and European schools
embezzling the hard-earned Ethiopian foreign currency and using Ethiopian
taxpayers’ money. Many Ethiopians who
live in these countries witness this fact.
These dictators are following their counterparts in China. The Chinese Premier Xi Jinping’s
daughter is studying at Harvard,
not in China.
The TPLF rulers are
preparing to sustain their reign and to claim their children are the
best-educated ones and they deserve to be the next Ethiopian rulers following
their parents’ footsteps. The other
evidence is that the current Ethiopian rulers are buying degrees from diploma
mills to dwarf their puppets and to seemingly raise their credibility. When they buy the degrees, the rulers know
that it is not to get the intended and honest benefits of education, but just
to legitimize their power through unearned educational credentials. There have been many reports exposing the
unearned educational credentials of the top EPRDF officials. Some of the officials were Abadula Gemeda,
Mekonnen Haddis, Constantinos Berhe, Arkebe Ekubay, among others.
In many countries where
there is the rule of law, citizens run for public offices because they believe
they have proven experiences in leadership, and because they believe to have
the qualities and education that qualify them for the positions. On the contrary, in Ethiopia, the potentates
claim to earn educational credentials because they hold political
positions. These unearned credentials
from Civil Service College and foreign diploma mills are creating bad
precedents and the practice is spreading throughout the country, including
non-government educational institutions.
Many people are getting degrees without meeting the requirements of the
credentials. Many have also been
defrauded. These bogus certificates are
used to cling to the political positions.
For some engaged in businesses, the certificates are used to get
lucrative government contracts.
Ethiopians in the past had high regard for educated citizens, however,
these unearned credentials, poor quality of education and pervasive political
hiring are demeaning the value of education and its benefit. This ultimately discourages responsible
parents from sending their children to school.
Poor
Quality of Education is a National Issue
The issue of poor quality
education is systemic and should be considered a national priority because the
problem is widespread throughout all levels of the education sector and all
over the country. It is about the
survival of the nation. Young people who
are not educated how to think critically are not ready to engage in constructive
and well-founded arguments. People who
do not have good education are unlikely to cope with changes. Students are left with no options, and they
are prevented from pursuing alternative ideas.
The colleges
and the schools are not in a position to help the students develop technical skills, critical thinking, and
reasoning skills to analyze various issues nor to develop alternative
perspectives. The learners are not given
the opportunity to develop communication skills that promote positive and
beneficial outcomes.
The students are made to
follow a one-size-fit-all approach of TPLF.
Organized in a one-to-five spying cell, they are brainwashed by the TPLF
cadres and indoctrinated with TPLF ethnocentric propaganda. The students are urged to be organized by
their ethnicity and religion, which was not a common practice in Ethiopian
higher learning institutions. What they
know and what they are persuaded to appreciate is the TPLF ethnocentric policy. TPLF created ethnic enclaves and by design
puts the unity of Ethiopia at risk. The
core of Ethiopian constitution, Article 39, which is promulgated by TPLF states, “Every nation, nationality or
people in Ethiopia shall have the unrestricted right to self determination up
to secession.” TPLF leaders often preach
and threaten the public that Ethiopia will disintegrate and horn of Africa will
be a war zone if they step down or if they are removed from power. TPLF lures the young people to accept the
tyranny.
The students are also
purposely made to deviate from the long-held and time-tested positive Ethiopian
tradition of problem solving, honesty, courtesy, civility, patriotism, and
dignity. The value system in the schools
and college community is being eroded. Cheating in exams and inflating grades have become a new norm. Now it is common to hear about university
students engaged in prostitution. This
is the shame of the nation that the public openly discusses. The schools and colleges are becoming hotbeds
of a dysfunctional generation. Students
are becoming dependent on ‘chat’ and other narcotic drugs. The way the government is running the schools
and colleges is making the public lose trust in the education system. This is significantly damaging and takes
decades to repair.
Underperforming graduates
are taking the teaching job; and children do not get appropriate help and
guidance. To be recruited and join
teacher education colleges, the candidates should be members of EPRDF. Individuals who are competent but neutral or
critical of the government are not given the opportunity. Academic performance is not a major criterion
to become a teacher. The teacher
education colleges are accepting such underprepared candidates that they even
have to teach prospective teachers how to write Amharic alphabets. This way, the unqualified but TPLF-loyal
individuals are filling the openings in the new schools and supplanting the
retirees. The cycle is continuing and
affecting all sectors. Driven by ethnic
politics, there has been too much focus on mother tongue as a language of
instruction. In addition to the lack of
qualified primary school teachers, according to a World Bank study, some of the regions are facing challenges in using
mother tongues due to lack of learning materials, and because children in a
class often have different mother tongues.
University presidents and
educational leaders are appointed based on their allegiances to TPLF and based
on their place of origin. This does not
help to get the best available educational leaders for the job, to improve
quality, nor to strengthen the national integrity of the country. This creates narrow local sentiment. Colleges and universities should play important
roles in national integration by bringing together students and faculty of
different geographical regions. If used
wisely, the institutions in Ethiopia can serve as lynchpins for the unity of
the country instead of promoting conflict-inciting and irresponsible ethnic
politics. To improve the quality of
education, the institutions need visionary leaders who can think outside the
box, who focus on the needs of the stakeholders and who are truly committed to
improving the quality of education. The educational
administrators and the presidents are evaluated by their demonstrated loyalty
and commitment to TPLF-EPRDF, not by their loyalty to the institution they lead
and the students they serve.
It is not the input
materials, building, class size, textbooks, library, laboratory, or technology
alone that assures or enhances quality.
Of course, resources are essential, but if we do not address the root
causes of the problem, we continue wasting the scarce resources and pushing the
country deeper into poverty. Are
Ethiopian taxpayers now getting the most for their money spent on the schools
and universities? Ethiopians should
first focus on the best use of the available resources before they scale up
colleges and high schools and open new ones using loan and aid money.
Recommendations
The root cause of the poor quality
of education in Ethiopia is the misguided, politicized, and authoritarian
administration of the education system by EPRDF, along with the government’s
lack of political will to truly address this root cause of the problem. This resulted in prison-like educational
institutions that muzzle and stunt students and teachers. On the part of the government, there is no
genuine demand for high quality education.
The regime is unwilling to attract and keep well-qualified human
resources that can achieve quality; it is rather deliberately driving the
quality of education down by staffing the educational institutions with
incompetent and TPLF-loyal individuals.
It sets low and politically motivated expectations for the schools and
colleges to achieve. The educational
institutions are accomplishing what TPLF wants.
Primarily, there should be the
political will and commitment to address the problem. EPRDF is treating the symptoms instead of focusing
on the root cause. The Ethiopian
government is trying to justify the end by using seemingly appropriate means,
such as building more universities, increasing enrollment, etc. Without the political resolve and commitment
to quality, all expansion, evaluation of education programs, assessments, or
quality audits will be futile exercises.
If the evaluation is to see whether the schools and colleges are
achieving the misguided partisan goals, it does not help to improve quality
because it will be just a self-fulfilling prophecy.
The first step to
continuously improve quality of education is identifying and addressing the
needs of the ultimate stakeholders. There
should be academic freedom and institutional autonomy. Committed, hardworking, ethical, autonomous,
and competent teachers, faculty, and administrators are indispensable to
achieve quality in education. Equally
important are the commitment, motivation, discipline, and hard work of the
learners who are the co-creators of knowledge.
Parents should also play a role in setting higher standards for their
children and creating conducive environment for learning. There should be a quality enhancement system
properly integrated with the teaching-learning process. Without these, Ethiopia cannot provide
quality education and build a resilient, sustainable, and knowledge-based
economy. Otherwise, Ethiopians will be
relegated to be dogsbodies for foreigners and continue to live in abject
poverty even if the country could be able to attract foreign investors and
focus on manufacturing and mechanized farms.
Development is a function
of innovative and creative minds, hard work, and responsible leadership. Only loyalty to TPLF-EPRDF and the work of
few party and army-owned companies cannot make Ethiopia competitive in the 21st
globalized economy. It is engaging
citizens and the collective impact that make significant differences in the
lives of Ethiopians. If Ethiopia needs
to achieve socio-economic development, the government should entertain diverse
viewpoints. Ethiopians should be able to
freely express their views, develop, and realize their potentials. The government should create not only the
supply but also the demand for high quality and relevant education. It has to build a culture of rewarding hard
work, integrity, innovation, and creativity - not just faithfulness to TPLF. Such culture will drive schools, colleges,
students, parents, teachers, and administrators to focus on real quality
education.
The government should
have the stomach and political will to stop using the public sectors to recruit
and retain party loyalist, and to choke off dissent. To make meaningful changes, the government
must start involving all stakeholders; it should rethink how to organize and
administer the education system. The
government should have trust in Ethiopians, and Ethiopians should have a
government they confide in and hold accountable. Few highly paid foreign consultants and
international organizations, like the World Bank or USAID, cannot create
panacea for Ethiopian education problems.
International
organizations like the World Bank, USAID, and British Department of
International Development and foreign countries that finance this destructive
education system should evaluate the damage they are causing and they should
reexamine their policies before they continue channeling more money to
exacerbate the suffering of Ethiopians.
The systemic suppression of Ethiopians by EPRDF is already costing
Ethiopian taxpayers billions of dollars.
Teachers, faculty,
educational administrators, students, parents, civic organizations, local
researchers, citizens, and funding agencies should be at the forefront to
demand fundamental changes and solutions to this deliberately created problem;
and they should be part of the solution.
This is not just about education, or few schools or colleges; it is
about Ethiopia and Ethiopians. The issue
of quality Education in Ethiopia is an elephant in the room. Where there is a will, there is a way.
