The Ethiopian Journal of Education

Student Support Services in the Ethiopian School System: Grades Four, Eight, Ten and Twelve in Focus

Fantahun Admas — 2018-05-29

Student support services are key activities carried out by schools in order to improve students’ academic and non-academic skills. Students at various grade levels who received support from their respective schools tend to achieve and adjust better than those who did not have such an experience. This study was conducted to survey the support services students receive in Ethiopian schools and examine the availability, adequacy and importance of these services. To serve this purpose, a survey research design was employed. A total of 2243 students from grades four, eight, ten and twelve participated in the study from Amhara and Gambella regions, and Addis Ababa city administration. Multistage sampling technique was employed to select the participants. A questionnaire containing demographic characteristics and support services such as academic areas, counseling, material, special needs, health care, extra-curricular activities, physical school situations and parental involvement was employed to gather empirical data. The collected data were analyzed using descriptive statistics. The findings of the study showed that though over 50% of participants of the study indicated the presence of the services, they disclosed the inadequacy of the support services. However, a considerable number of students indicated the absence of such services and at the same time expressed the need for such services at all levels. Based on the findings, implications of the study are indicated.

Noise Annoyance Reactions of Children in Primary Schools

Feda Negesse — 2018-03-30

This survey reports annoyance reaction of primary school children to road traffic and students’ talk in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. A questionnaire was used to collect data from randomly selected 2,265 children from 56 primary schools in the city. The analysis of the data showed that the children were more significantly annoyed by students’ talk than by road traffic. The analysis also revealed a significant gender difference in noise annoyance, with boys more annoyed than girls irrespective of a type of learning activity and a source of noise. Moreover, a significant difference was also observed among learning activities in road traffic annoyance, with the children more annoyed in listening than in group work and reading, and in group work than in reading. Taken together, the results of the study indicated that noise annoyance in children is significantly related to noise source, gender and type of learning activity children do at school.

Know Thy Self: Viability of Early Childhood Education Delivery through Traditional Priest Schools

Belay Hagos — 2018-07-31

This paper examined the viability of revitalizing priest school education to contribute for creating children’s school readiness particularly for low income families. Intellectual analysis of a philosophical research type was conducted to reflect on related experiences, findings, views, attitudes, and data. It was hypothesized that priest schools retain objectives, approaches, and methods that would enable creating school readiness. Its outcomes were also hypothesized to be much wider than building mere basic literacy skills as it was commonly held. The analysis conducted unveiled that expansion of modern preschools has marginalized priest schools along with its inherent treasures. Government instruments (ECCE Policy, curriculum, standards, and guides) were believed to play a major role in this marginalization process as they have entirely excluded any mention about these community-based schools. Research reports that indirectly address priest school education underscored its inappropriateness as well as negative attitudes from community members. There are, in fact, some limited ECCE personnel and researchers who have been in favor of the use of priest schools in ECCE delivery. This study assumed that the objections to the use of priest schools were based on a wrong implicit assumption that early years education should be of the “standard ECCE type” (obviously of a Western origin). Lack of knowledge about and familiarity with the real nature of these schools were also believed to preempt uncritical and negative views about them. However, the analysis has made it clear that, above and beyond their being cost-effective and culturally rooted, these schools retain objectives, follow approaches and methods, and create profiles that would make transitioning to and learning in formal education successful. How these schools are to be revitalized was also highlighted.

Adaptation and Validation of the Home and School Forms of the Sensory Processing Measure-Preschool (SPM-P) for Use in Ethiopia

Hisabu Hadgu — 2018-05-29

Despite the encouraging trend in public awareness of the need for psychological support, there are indications that psychologists in Ethiopia face a wide
range of challenges to keep up with the growing demand. One gap concerns the availability of measures. As part of the needed effort to bridge this gap, the present study attempts to adapt and validate an existing measure, the Sensory Processing Measure Preschool (SPMP), for use in the Ethiopian context. The study selected 676 participants who were typically developing children and 29 children with special needs aged between two and five years and selected from kindergartens in Addis Ababa. The SPM-P is a rating scale with home and school forms, each containing 75 items which are completed by the parent/caregiver and teacher/day-care provider respectively. Stratified random sampling and availability sampling techniques were employed to select the typically
developing group and children with special needs, respectively. The results indicated good reliability coefficients for both forms (Home form, .93 and School form, .92) of the SPMP Amharic Version (SPMP-AV) and for the subscales (ranging from .60 to .90). Besides, SPMP-AV significantly discriminated between typically-developing children and children with special needs (p< .001), indicating the scale’s discriminant validity. The scale’s convergent validity was further established. Overall, SPMP-AV demonstrated good psychometric characteristics; with careful use, it can play a significant role in the development of evidence-based practices to address sensory processing disorders in Ethiopia.

Experience and the Growth of Understanding: A Book Review

Mulugeta Yayeh — 2018-05-29