Assessing Ethiopias Development in the Education System - Research Paper Example

 Assessing Ethiopia’s Development in the Education System Introduction The Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia has gone through many difficulties in the past decades. However, the country is trying to become a market economy to give it advantages in global trade and make the country more competitive. Many political changes have now made Ethiopia the largest country in terms of GDP, even higher than Kenya which is a major success. As of 2009, Ethiopia’s GDP was at $33.9 billion. However, it is still considered to be one of the poorest countries in Africa. The country though is making important changes to not be such a poor nation by setting new focuses on different sectors with affect on the economy, such as agriculture and technology. Even though there have been many economic gains, inflation is still a large problem in the country (IMF, 2012). Ethiopia has difficulty bringing stability to its economy which is brought by poor fiscal policy. However, the country’s government is working hard to tighten these policies and steady its problems with balance of payments. Slow economic growth also has impact on the education sector. This essay describes how the economy affects the education systems in Ethiopia to make decisions if the country is making positive gains in education. Based on all research, Ethiopia is improving in economic growth and in the education sector. Education Improvement and the Economy Between 1995 and 2009, Ethiopia saw enrollment level in primary school improve by 500 percent (Engel, 2015). This is due to the government’s efforts at reducing poverty and seeking to grow the entire public education system. The government has put more investment to fund the education system and has created planning systems to build better education infrastructure. Having more food security in the community and improvement of citizen health has given reason for students to be more interested in getting an education. In 1985, the government of Ethiopia only placed 8.2 percent of GDP on education. By 2009, the investment was 23.6 percent of GDP (Engel). This shows a very large change of attitude by government and would not have been possible without real economic growth and change. It seems that the effort to become a market economy is responsible for much of GDP growth in this country. Some other reasons why enrollment has grown is that the government has come up with many different plans in education. The government has removed enrollment fees in primary and secondary schools. The government has even sponsored better teacher education planning as an education supply chain plan. Even adults are having opportunity for education with the government investing in adult literacy programs. In many situations, the government of Ethiopia is the major driving force for what is giving improve to education for adults and children alike. The government has even attracted private donors to help improve the education system. This has given the Ethiopian school systems better supplies and ability to create better learning tools for students in primary and secondary education (Lister, 2007). More community involvement helps to give students better education supplies and give long-time strategic planning which is much better than in earlier decades when the education system was rated as being quite poor compared to other nations in the world. Also, in the early 2000s, Ethiopia was able to bring in more foreign direct investment. UNCTAD (2004) reports that nearly $100 million in FDI was achieved by the country. The government helped with this, building four new universities by 2002 and privately-owned learning institutions were given accreditation to offer higher quality higher education (UNCTAD). Even the government investing in child care services give adults more motivation to attend literacy programs. This has improved the adult literacy rate largely. It is small changes like child care that makes the country more competitive by having better educated people. Now that there is more demand for higher education and adults with higher literacy rates, Ethiopia has many opportunities for bringing in more foreign direct investment in this sector foreign owners of private learning institutions can make high revenues when entering Ethiopia which gives citizens in rural and urban areas more opportunity to improve their learning. It also removes burdens of high investment on government where nearly 30 percent of GDP is given to education. From a different view, the government’s new policies to end poverty and give citizens better lifestyle and food security have lessened the child mortality rate (UNDP, 2014). The country has set a goal of finding enrollment rates at 80.2 percent of the population in primary education. This is possible in a country ending child mortality where there are more children healthy enough to enter the primary school system. This is a large accomplishment for the country when other African nations still have high mortality rates in children. Ethiopia, as a United Nations member, also is given assistance from the World Bank in education. In 2013, the World Bank approved a large amount of financing to help Ethiopian children get a better education. Ethiopia was given $550 million dollars to better its schools (The World Bank, 2013). The goal of this funding is to give more support for mathematics, language learning and science. More textbooks are now available in Ethiopian schools because of the World Bank’s generous financing. It also gives more ability to train educators and develop their skills in teaching. There is now even more ability to audit school performance because of this $550 million financing. This is something very important for Ethiopia because schools did not have very good quality auditing systems in earlier decades. In 2008, the World Bank only gave approve for $50 million in Ethiopian education (The World Bank, 2008). This shows that the international community is more interested in Ethiopian education. What has also helped in education sector is that the International Monetary Fund has worked with Ethiopia to improve its economic situation. In 2008, the IMF approved a $50 million loan to help with balance of payments problems. IMF support in giving stability to the national economy has reduced its debt and now the country is able to invest more in education. Removing debt problems is a major issue in today’s Ethiopia for a country once having major problems with debt in many different sectors. What is also helping the education system is that the country is modernizing. Lerra (2014) reports that Ethiopia is beginning to become aware of the important of distance learning. As citizen lifestyle becomes better, they have more access to Internet and personal computers. This is also supported by FDI in many industry sectors. A study of real-world Ethiopian students found that they believed distance learning systems in Ethiopia were very supportive and the programs very supportive of improved learning (Lerra). Distance learning as modernization is important because not all students have high skills to become candidates for attending large universities. This gives less-skilled students more opportunity to learn in the higher education in a country where there never used to be many different options. These students have opportunities for online education and get focus from educators when they were once rejected because of their limited skills. Ethiopia also has many students that live in rural areas and distance learning gives these students a new change to gain important education learning. It is a reach-out program for rural students who were once not given a chance to gain important higher education learning. Improvements in education have also built the ability to distance learn. Government investment in telecommunications helped in this area. New communication technologies have also been brought to the country through foreign direct investment, making distance learning possible. It seems that the new government of Ethiopia understands that the economy and education are very connect. There is more focus on building capacity and improving research in how to better build a quality education system. Between 1974 and 1991, the Derg regime (the ruling government) was more concerned with spending on war. This regime did not have a clear focus on building learning capacity in the country and used public resources for wartime activity. After this regime was removed from power in 1991, new government made many reforms that changed focus of public spending. This gave the education sector the foundation for improvement that has continued throughout the years. For many countries, a complete change of government is very important for making sure that public resources are spent proper. The government is, today, also working with many different international organizations to set standards of learning. Developed countries in Europe and North America have very strong rules on education auditing and curriculum. These standards are being adopt by Ethiopia which is changing how teachers are trained. International standards change how in-school research is done, how students are tested and monitored, and how teaching programs are structured. Cooperation with international community gives Ethiopia a framework to work by that has made large improvements in learning quality in primary, secondary and higher education schools. This is very important in a country where not all teachers and governments understand how to set standards. Lastly, with more students having incomes and better quality of lifestyle, they can now afford higher education tuition costs. This gives universities income which improves education quality and even gives the government taxes. This funding source direct from students improves university supervision (salaries) and provides motivated, visionary and committed leaders. Many Ethiopian learning institutions had poor leadership in earlier years, but now that students have the ability to pay enrolment costs, better human resources systems make sure students learn in high quality. This is very important because when poverty was so high and lifestyle so poor, higher education enrollment was very low. Even economic theory shows this, where when prices are seen as being high, demand is lower. Now universities in Ethiopia do not have to worry that they will have long-time revenues and can use modern marketing to attract more students in the country and in foreign countries. Increasing enrollment is very necessary for universities and this was once a problem for Ethiopian higher education systems. Conclusion As research shows, the economy of Ethiopia is tracked for improvement. Better fiscal policy and more focused government has massive changed the education system. The country is realizing it is important to become competitive globally to have more educated people. With help from many organizations through the whole world, who provide funding, Ethiopia has made more capacity in education. This has given students in secondary, primary and higher education have many more opportunities. Changed government from one focused on war funding to education has improved the movement to a market economy (trying). The research shows that the economy of Ethiopia is linked to education quality improvement. Ending child mortality and ending poverty is the start of what builds quality education. In countries with poor lifestyle quality, there is little motivation to become highly educated. Food insecurity is a major issue in many African countries, but the government is working on this. This would change social factors and attitude, giving new opportunities to seek out learning instead of always being worried about basic needs. It is concluded therefore that Ethiopia is making major improvements in education as a result of economic growth and improvement. Reduce of debt, better control over inflation, and better resource distribution focus helps in the education system. Ethiopia has come long way toward economic development with a total focus on linking these economic gains with education improvement. Even more community members realize that giving assist in helping further education has economic benefits for the country. It reduces burden on government and shows foreign investors that the country is serious about education improvement. Because Ethiopia always shows the international community that it is able to improve education capacity and quality, the country (and its students) get the important help needed. References Engel, Jakob. (2015). Ethiopia’s Progress in Education: A Rapid and Equitable Expansion of Access. Overseas Development Institute. Retrieved July 5, 2015 from http://allafrica.com/download/resource/main/main/idatcs/00020257:ae9e77aeacf6cb4d8a 886967f7390afe.pdf IMF. (2012). Statement by an IMF Staff Mission on the 2012 Article IV Consultation with Ethiopia. Retrieved July 4, 2015 from http://www.imf.org/external/np/sec/pr/2012/pr12224.htm Lister, Stephen. (2007). Scaling up Aid for Education in Ethiopia. Oxford: Mokoro. The World Bank. (2013). World Bank Supports Ethiopia’s Plan to Transform Education for more than 21 Million Children. Retrieved July 6, 2015 from http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2013/12/02/world-bank-ethiopia- transform-education-children The World Bank. (2008). Ethiopia: Sixteen Million Students to Benefit from World Bank Credit to Improve the Quality of General Education. Retrieved July 5, 2015 from http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2008/12/18/ethiopia-sixteen-million- students-to-benefit-from-world-bank-credit-to-improve-the-quality-of-general-education UNCTAD. (2004). An Investment Guide to Ethiopia. The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development. Retrieved July 6, 2015 from http://unctad.org/en/Docs/iteiia20042_en.pdf UNDP. (2014). Ethiopia: Country Economic Brief, The United Nations Development Program. Retrieved July 6, 2015 from http://www.et.undp.org/content/dam/ethiopia/docs/Country%20Economic%20Brief%201 %20final%20for%20web.pdf Read More