HARAMAYA UNIVERSITY

POSTGRADUATE PROGRAM DIRECTORATE

COLLEGE OF EDUCATION AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATIONAL PLANNING AND MANAGEMENT
MA in Educational Leadership and Management

ASSIGNMENT OF EDUCATIONAL POLICY

Title: Ethiopian modern education during dergi regime

By GROUP------------------------------------------------IDno

1. ADEM MOHAMMED-----------------------------Pgp/664/14
2. MOHAMMED BAKER----------------------------pgp/673/14
3. AHMEDSHAM ALI---------------------------------pgp/665/14
4. JAMAL ABDALLA-----------------------------------pgp/670/14

Submitted to: Million K. (PhD)

Haramaya University, Haramaya

Contents
INTRODUCTION..............................................................................................................1
1.1 Modern Education during the Derg Era.........................................................................2
1.2 Curriculum Change, Undertaking and Organization.......................................................6
1.3 Criticisms of the Education System and the Curriculum.................................................7
CONCLUSION..................................................................................................................9
Reference..........................................................................................................................10
INTRODUCTION
The aim of socialist education is to mould citizens who have an all-rounded personality
by inculcating the entire society with socialist ideology thus arming them with the
required knowledge for socialist construction. The fundamental aim of education is...to
cultivate Marxist-Leninist ideology in the young generation, to develop knowledge in
science and technology, in the new culture and the arts, and to integrate and co-ordinate
research with production to enable the revolution to move forward and secure productive
citizens.
The formal education sector expanded rapidly after the revolution, but the fact
that there are some weaknesses in the quality of education must now be
recognized. The content and quality of education must fully prepare students to
meet the objective demands of the nation and the ideological needs of the
society. Steps should be taken without delay to implement the program for
expansion of technical and vocational education in line with the manpower
demands of the country. In response to this resolution, the Ministry of Education
launched a project known as the Evaluative Research on the General Education
System of Ethiopia (ERGESE) in 1983, which was completed by 1986.

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1.1 Modern Education during the Derg Era

The new government known as “Derg” came to power by throwing Emperor Haile
Sellassie in 1974 through coup. Derg considered education as a key to development,
mainly to manifest the socialist ideology, as a result adopted a new education policy. This
view was charted in the National Democratic Revolution (NDR) in 1976, further
elaborated in the five volumes policy document known as General Directives of
Ethiopian Education produced by the Ministry of Education in 1980 (Tekeste, 1990).
Again another aim of education was endorsed by the ruling party in 1984 (WPE: 1984):

The aim of socialist education is to mould citizens who have an all-rounded personality
by inculcating the entire society with socialist ideology thus arming them with the
required knowledge for socialist construction. The fundamental aim of education is...to
cultivate Marxist-Leninist ideology in the young generation, to develop knowledge in
science and technology, in the new culture and the arts, and to integrate and co-ordinate
research with production to enable the revolution to move forward and secure productive
citizens.

As discussed previously, the major problems of education during Haile Sellassie's regime
were low enrolment of secondary education and failure to achieve universal education
(illiteracy was very high). The new government-Derg-was encouraged to overcome these
problems by developing various strategies. Literacy campaign, expansion of education
both in primary and secondary education were some of the issues that were given
emphasis by the specified government.

Quite a vigorous national campaign was launched; by July 1990 a 75.3 percent national
literacy rate was reported by the government. The campaign had its own strengths and
weaknesses. Some of the strong points of the campaign are: creating an awareness on the
value of literacy among the populace; if systematically studied, can-inform and positively

2
influence future literacy initiatives and programs; providing educational opportunity for
large number of adults as well as children; sensitizing the general public toward
continuing education; considering the local languages-fifteen languages-for literacy use.
On the other hand, its weak points are lacking an explicitly stated educational philosophy
to guide actions and practices; highly centralized. Such condition resulted in several
problems such as evasion of accountability, curtailment of local initiative and
independent action, concealment of individual and group waste and inefficiency.

The rate of expansion both in primary and secondary education during Derg era was very
high as compared with Haile Sellassie's regime. Tekeste (1990) comparison reveals this
assertion (the expansion) between Haile Sellassies's regime and Derg regime as follows:
"Enrollment (including those in private schools) increased from 224,934 in 1959-1960 to
1,042,900 in 1974-75 or at the rate of about 15 percent per annum. During the 1975-89
period enrollment increased from 1,042,900 to 3,926,700 or at a rate of about 12 per cent
annually.”

Despite high expansion of the educational system of the Derg period, it was faced with
meager educational resources, shortage of qualified teachers etc. resulting in the
deterioration of the quality of education (Seyoum, 1996). Indeed these problems were
identified by the Government, and led to take further action i.e. to review the education
sector. In view of this, in 1983, the Government adopted a resolution, which reads
(COPWE, 1983: 3, in Tekeste, 1990: 18).

The formal education sector expanded rapidly after the revolution, but the fact
that there are some weaknesses in the quality of education must now be
recognized. The content and quality of education must fully prepare students to
meet the objective demands of the nation and the ideological needs of the
society.Steps should be taken without delay to implement the program for
expansion of technical and vocational education in line with the manpower

3
demands of the country.
In response to this resolution, the Ministry of Education launched a project known as the
Evaluative Research on the General Education System of Ethiopia (ERGESE) in 1983,
which was completed by 1986.

This study focused on four major areas: a) Curriculum Development and Teaching-
Learning Process; b) Educational Administration Structure and Planning; c) Educational
Logistics, Supportive Services and Manpower Training; and d) Educational Evaluation
and Research. However, the study was shelved (Tekeste, 1990; Seyoum, 1996). Some of
the objectives of the ERGESE regarding curriculum development and the teaching–
learning process are: to examine the degree of integration of each subject with the
national educational objectives; to analyze student textbooks with the aim of
understanding their integration (content and clarity) with the national objectives; to assess
the impact of time allocation, language of instruction, and the material delivery system on
educational objectives.

In light of this, the findings of the study reveal:

a) The syllabi of secondary school subjects reflected the national objectives; textbooks
do not reflect national educational objectives and that most of them pay attention to
the teaching rather than learning dimensions;
b) The subjects (except agriculture) suffer either from lack of clarity, coherence, and
consistency of content or from poor style of presentation;
c) Amharic as a medium of instruction in the primary school (grades 1-6) has created
difficulties for students whose mother tongue is not Amharic;
d) using English as a medium of instruction from grade seven up to grade twelve created
difficulties both for teachers as well as students;
e) The stages of the education ladder, i.e. primary (1-6), junior secondary (7-8), and
senior secondary (9-12) are not satisfactorily integrated and coordinated;
f) The expansion of the educational system is not in accordance with the economic

4
 resource capability of the state;
g) The problem of Ethiopian education is a result of poor textbooks, lack of instruments,
and widespread incompetence among teaching staff.

Some of the recommendations of the study with regard to curriculum are: the need for
informing the results of the study for experts at the curriculum department and
establishing of curriculum institute. Furthermore, the study recommended the preparation
of textbooks for vocational education. This is because the Ten-Year Development Plan
envisages that vocational education ought to match with the country's Socialist economic
orientation and to meet its target by the end of the plan period. ERGESE also
recommended for further study with regard to the use of Amharic and English as the
medium of instruction.

As was discussed earlier a new proposal for reforming education came primarily as a
result of the expansion of secondary education. Basically, the expansion of secondary
education was beyond the capacity of the economy, particularly created unemployable
graduates (Tekeste, 1990; Seyoum, 1996). Hence, the MOE devised a plan—eight year
universal Polytechnic Education, assuming that such program could contribute to the
creation of skilled manpower into the economy. The new reform was partially accepted
by the government to be implemented by 1986. The idea of the reform, particularly to
promote polytechnic education, was contained in the Ten year Plan of the sector on the
bases of the following aims: to enhance respect for work; to make the curriculum
relevant; to intensify the eradication of illiteracy; to strengthen Amharic as the medium of
instruction at primary level; to improve teacher education; to upgrade the teaching
profession, and to provide education to the physically and mentally handicapped
(PMGSE,1985: 436-39 in Seyoum, 1996). The overall objective was to obtain a middle-
level trained manpower. Though an attempt had begun to implement some aspects of
these objectives, by 1991 with the collapse of the regime, the Ten Year Plan faced a
deathblow once and for all.

5
1.2 Curriculum Change, Undertaking and Organization
Two curriculum packages -transitional and the general polytechnic–had been operated
side by side. The latter was subjected for experiment (pilot study) before replacing the
former at national level. In these experimental program considerable professional efforts,
financial input, etc. were made. However, it was not then found feasible in terms of
inputs and other situational factors to implement such program at nationwide. Both lack
of sufficient financial investment and its coincidence with the apparent downfall of the
communist ideology in its country of origin (Soviet Union) had made the program in vain
except its slim memories (ICDR, 1996).

After the collapse of the monarchy in 1974, a group of curriculum developers (curriculum
experts, subject experts and experienced teachers) were formed to revise the curriculum
on the bases of the new educational goals, which took the task for two years.
Subsequently, the responsibility for further refinement and development of new
curricular materials was given for the then Curriculum Department (now known as the
Institute for Curriculum Development and Research -ICDR). The curriculum planning
was too centralized, where syllabuses and curriculum materials were prepared and
distributed from the center.

1.3 Criticisms of the Education System and the Curriculum

The education system does not escape criticisms. The MOE (1996), for instance,

6
forwarded flak criticisms that include:
a) various proposals were made to change the structure of the education system, but not
implemented
b) most of the regular budget (56.8%) was allocated to the military and other related
activities at the expense of education and other social development issues and
endeavors
c) teachers' and students' attention was directed to political and propaganda activities
d) The literacy campaign, which was inefficiently launched in fifteen nationality
languages, had many setbacks due to lack of genuine commitment, undemocratic
nature of planning and implementation. In fact all of the criticisms of the MOE were
focusing on the shortcomings

The other criticism is associated with curriculum undertaking. Basically, a very few
authors made study on the curriculum of Ethiopia. Feleke (1990), for instance, in his
study indicates the type of curriculum approach employed at the Department of
Curriculum. The same author’s findings reveal that first, the process of the development
of the Transitional curriculum (it refers to the curriculum that replaced the one before
1974 and was in operational schools except those seventy schools where polytechnic
education was under experiment) followed neither and established set of procedures nor
was founded on the bases of the evaluation results of the old curriculum. It was rather
patchwork, and piecemeal in its approach, characterized by more inclusion and exclusion
of content in the same old curriculum of the day.

Second, the goals of Ethiopian education in the Derg regime were that education for
production, class struggle and consciousness and scientific research had become the
philosophical bases for planning the curriculum. The goals were vague, too general and
broad to provide necessary direction to education throughout the country. Similarly
Seyoum (1996) considers the goal of education, for instance, which was endorsed in 1984
in a report on the formation of Workers Party of Ethiopia as unrealistic, i.e., “sounded

7
more of rhetoric than realistic". Two reasons were given for his premise. First creating an
all-round socialist personality is far reaching in a society which had the culture of deep-
rooted feudalism for so many years. Second, indoctrinating with an alien and radical
ideology -Marxism-Leninism was incompatible and incomprehensible for the majority of
the children.

Although Tekeste's (1990) study mainly based on the history curriculum for secondary
education, it provides very useful information of curriculum of the era. The findings of
this study reveal that “although the new state [Derg] showed a far more consistent
concern over the need of evolving an appropriate curriculum, the case of the history
curriculum for secondary schools strongly suggests that in reality far less has been done."

CONCLUSION
The rate of expansion both in primary and secondary education during Derg era was very
high as compared with Haile Sellassie's regime. Tekeste (1990) comparison reveals this

8
assertion (the expansion) between Haile Sellassies's regime and Derg regime as follows:
"Enrollment (including those in private schools) increased from 224,934 in 1959-1960 to
1,042,900 in 1974-75 or at the rate of about 15 percent per annum. During the 1975-89
period enrollment increased from 1,042,900 to 3,926,700 or at a rate of about 12 per cent
annually.”
Despite high expansion of the educational system of the Derg period, it was faced with
meager educational resources, shortage of qualified teachers etc. resulting in the
deterioration of the quality of education (Seyoum, 1996). Indeed these problems were
identified by the Government, and led to take further action i.e. to review the education
sector. In view of this, in 1983, the Government adopted a resolution, which reads
(COPWE, 1983: 3, in Tekeste, 1990: 18).

The formal education sector expanded rapidly after the revolution, but the fact
that there are some weaknesses in the quality of education must now be
recognized. The content and quality of education must fully prepare students to
meet the objective demands of the nation and the ideological needs of the
society. Steps should be taken without delay to implement the program for
expansion of technical and vocational education in line with the manpower
demands of the country.

Reference

Ministry of Education (1987 E.C.) Educational Supervision Manual. Addis Ababa: EMPDA. (in
Amharic). Obilade, Sandra (1989). Educational Supervision in Nigeria. Ibadan:
Odusate Bookstores Ltd

9
Carron, G. and Ta Ngoc Chau. 1996. The quality of Primary Schools in different Development
contexts. Paris: UNESCO International Institute for Educational Planning.
Carron, G and Anton De Grauwe (1997) Current Issues in Supervision; A Literature Review.
Paris: UNESCO/International Institute for Educational Planning.
Carron, G., A. De Grauwe, and R. Govinda (1998) Supervision and Support Services in Asia: A
Comparative Analysis. Paris: UNESCO/ International Institute for Educational
Planning.
Dean, I. (1992) Inspecting and Advising: A Handbook for Inspectors. Advisors and Advisory
Teachers. London: Rutledge.
Dull. L.W. (1981) Supervision: School Leadership Hand book. Columbus: Charles E. Merrill
Publishing Company.

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