Education in Ethiopia

The education system in Ethiopia is divided into three divisions consisting of primary school, lower secondary school, and higher secondary school. The primary schooling lasts for 6 years, the lower secondary 4 years, and the higher secondary 2 years. Elementary education is usually taught in the local languages especially in the rural areas. A very important underlying principle used in education in Ethiopia is the belief of their society that corporal punishment is the right way of teaching their children. They believe that their children can best learn new and better habits by having them punished when they do bad ones.

Most of the schools in Ethiopia lack the basic school supplies and necessities often seen as standard fare in other countries. They lack books for the students and even pens and paper. Some schools even lack necessary utilities such as clean water and working toilets for the students. Making the educational situation even worse is the fact that on average, a teacher has to attend to a class comprising of 65 students.

Although most Ethiopian children who go to school begin to do so at the age of 5, literacy in Ethiopia is still very low. This is in part due to the low quality, non standard actual education available to them and also due to the general belief of the people of Ethiopia that education is not an important part of their productivity. Most Ethiopians believe that work is far more important than education and that education is not really needed for work. They are of the inclination that all they need to know to work can easily be learned by doing the work itself thus it is not necessary to spend several years in school before starting out to work.