Prospects and Challenges of Achieving the Millennium Development Educational Goals in Ethiopia: Where does Ethiopia Stand on EFA Goals?

Abstract

Ethiopia has committed itself to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) aimed at eradicating extreme poverty and improving the welfare of its peoples. Providing Quality Education to all school age children with the specific target of ensuring by 2015 all children will be able to complete a full course of primary schooling is one of the major Millennium Development Goals (MDG) of Ethiopia. It echoes a commitment made by the international community to achieve universal primary education by the year 2000 in Jomtien, Thailand in 1990. This paper tries to assess whether or not the Millennium Development Educational Goal can be met in Ethiopia. Specifically, it tries to address the questions: Where do we stand today in relation to the MDG target of universal primary completion? How far from or near to the Millennium Development Educational Goal is Ethiopia? And if Ethiopia is far from meeting the goal, what would be required to achieve it, both in terms of education policy reform and domestic and international financing? The focus of this paper is on the opportunities and challenges of achieving Universal Primary Education in Ethiopia. The study is based on an in-depth analysis of data from the Ministry of Education and related international experiences. The study found out that though the changes observed in the past few years are immense, Ethiopia still remains one of the countries where the realization of this agreed development target is questionable. Despite substantial achievements in recent years in raising school enrolment rates (GER above 80% and NER above 70%) in 2005/06), millions of primary school (aged 7-14 years) children in Ethiopian still remain out of the schools system. Moreover, enrollment levels vary substantially by region and gender. Furthermore, while one may appreciate the attempts made to expand access, and improve equity, the progress so far made to improve quality is limited. According to the results of the two National Learning Assessments so far made in Ethiopia, the overall achievement of schools stands below 50% mean. This indicates that increasing access, and at the same time, improving the necessary conditions for improving quality of education is a challenge for the coming years in Ethiopia. This shows that unless concentrated effort is made by all parties, the achievement of MDG will remain beyond reach in some regions and in remote rural areas. Thus, both the Federal Government and the concerned regions need to devise special strategies and mobilize resources for implementing the strategies to achieve the MDG as planned.