The History of Education in Ethiopia with Special Emphasis on Higher Education

from the Library of Congress in Washington DC good afternoon ladies and gentlemen I'm Peggy Pearlstein head of the Hebraic section here in the African and Middle Eastern Division of the Library of Congress welcome to today's program we're dr. akley lu hobby a former president of the haile selassie first university will speak about the history of education in ethiopia with an emphasis on higher education again thank you for coming and here is Venter Thank You Peggy good afternoon and welcome to this event I have a couple of announcements to make for the subsequent programs we will be having there is one on November 9 and mr. Becerra to one day freelance artist ethiopian artists will be speaking on contemporary church european church art and there will be December 9 events and subsequently there will be another one for in January also I will pass piece of papers so so that you can list your names for me and emails so that I can reach you whenever these events are remind you when these events are happening before they happen and it's also I like also all of you to remind you that you should check our website for subsequent events that are happening in the division there are so many programs listed and today we have a special guest and dr. akley Luo Xavier who has been an educator all of his life and I would say no one qualifies better than him to give this lecture about Ethiopia education in Ethiopia and especially with emphasis on higher education I'll now just read a brief biography of dr. akley room dr. akido haptic combines 36 years of academic managerial and international civil service experience from 1958 till 1994 and 15 years of selective consultative consultancy services civil society organizations and I ask for our community volunteer activities from 1990 to 1993 he served UNICEF as chief of the education division and special advisor to the executive director dr. Ackley who served the World Bank from 1977 to 1987 as the director of Education and Training Department and from 1987 to 1990 as special advisor in human resources development to the vice president of the Africa region from 1958 to 1974 he was with Haile Selassie first University first as a lecturer in education then as head of education department as dean of the Faculty of Arts and under education as associate academic vice president and lastly as president of the university from 1969 to 1974 at this point I would like to interject and add that it was at this time that I was a third-year college student under his presidency I must add also it was a time of student turmoil and uprising in campuses there were serious confrontations between the university administration law enforcement officers and students however dr. Eric LeDoux withstood the pressure from the students and the government and survived I must admit that he is a man of and a man of great moral fortitude dr. Lila Xavier has served and continues to serve on numerous boards and international organizations he is currently in the process of completing a book in Amharic regarding the development of higher education in Ethiopia with emphasis on the history of philosophy first University I now call upon dr. akley who helped it to this presentation good afternoon thank you very much Fanta for introduction and let me start by thanking this library and the staff for the wonderful job we are doing for people like me that are interested in some facts and you have always been ready to accommodate our requests you've done it on time and you've been very tireless as far as I'm concerned so I want to thank the chief of the division and the staff for this kind of services for your presiding over a store of knowledge in this place and I think making it available to interested people is a wonderful contribution you are making I've been asked to say a few words in half an hour I have in mind a period of some four or five thousand years that have to cover in half an hour so now you do the ratio so what I decided to do is to be selective and to make sure that I avoid statistics figures which you could find anywhere here so I'll try to emphasize largely on issues and problems that arose in the education Ethiopia and even those very selectively during questions and answers which I enjoy which I feel is probably more important than my contribution that is a period when we begin to interact I assume you all know where Ethiopia is because often when I am asked to give some talks to school systems in this country where I have now lived long time which is my second home when I ask the students what is the fee appear I often get all kinds of answers most of them it's somewhere in Mississippi and to some of them is in Canada and some of them rarely somewhere in Africa and to some of them even in Europe but I'd rather expect this group of audience to feel that way so I assume you know where Ethiopia is I want make four general statements that have broad implications for the development of Education and cultural development in Ethiopia just as a background the first one which you all know is the geographic location of Ethiopia because where it is it has had connections for a long time for millennia West Africa is here earthwards West Africa Sri I have had people whose whom have interacted in Mali and other places where they have told me all kinds of stories how people have come from a far land mountainous land and they had come and settled there and how people from western Africa have gone through Ethiopia and settled in Sudan and in Ethiopia in particular after the rise of Islam people used to come to go to Mecca and on the way somehow they have settled in Sudan and in Ethiopia and lived there forever and some of them go to Mecca on their way back they said there so this kind of historic interaction has been going on through West Africa the other way is through Eastern Africa the Arabian Peninsula as far as India and Indonesia but many people speak of the slavery slave movements usually the emphasis is as if all had taken place from West Africa but that's not true the large number of slaves have left from Ethiopia eastward to the Arabian Peninsula India and Indonesia and the Arab countries in that area in fact most of the wealth of African historian think that close to half of the slavery had gone through Eastern Africa but that's not only slavery a large number of Ethiopians and Africans have been recruited as brave soldiers to fight in the Indian Peninsula that part is fascinating for those of you that do not know it that but it's fascinating and historians are now opening the door how people have gone from Uganda Ethiopia in some parts of Kenya to the Indian particular where there was rivalry of Sultanate's for celerity and for power and they have used a large number of Ethiopians the difference is finest slavery in the American plain insula had brought in both male and female slavery in Eastern Africa over 99% only men the people think because of that there has been a very close integration in the assimilation of the people in the Indian Peninsula fireless it has got take place in the other of the other places because they had their own female but anyway that's that's the first factor I want to mention to you by way of the location of the country and the interaction that it has had that's that's one major factor the second major factor is the Nile Valley how history trade interaction cultural development has gone from southward from East from Ethiopia towards Sudan and Egypt now that by itself is another interesting phenomena and interesting development and recent historical trends indicate and this is something like 10 20 years now that somehow from the afar region moving through Sudan and to Egypt probably that's how ancient civilisation moved what from North southwards but from these ridges so let me just say the Nile Valley is the other factor to most people when they speak of the Nile they speak of the water which is important which is important no question and let me simply say that close to 80 85 percent of the Nile water goes from Ethiopia and the rest from the other parts of Africa so that's a second major factor the third factor that I think played a very important role in the development of culture education literacy civilizations within Ethiopia is how Ethiopia accepted the three major religions you start with Judaism which is long-established in Ethiopia the history of the queen of sheba to some people is a fable to the Serpent's is a reality and that occurred what 900 years or so before Christ and the story goes as you know I'm not going to repeat it that the Queen went to visit Solomon because of his wisdom of his sagacity and she the append story and tell us tried him on all kinds of things and found him to be a wise man she came and came with scholars from that part of the world the idea being Judaism was not for anything up there the CFS went and invited it to come the consequence is tremendous but I would not move into it Christianity the same way the story goes at around the first century or 30 for the minister of the treasurer of our queen and the king went to Jerusalem and on the way got baptized to be a Christian he came and started introducing Christianity into Ethiopia here again Christianity had not come as in many other parts of the world including Africa a fight monk which is the usual caricature with his cross and his gun to enslave a theoretical militia that isn't experience that we had in Ethiopia we went and and ask her for Christianity so it is inside driven the third major religion which happened at fifteen sixteen hundred years after Judaism cream trees here pear and after maybe six hundred years or so her charity calls in Ethiopia is Islam and even in this in the coming of this religion you know the story how Muhammad and his followers being persecuted while he was in the process of establishing himself and sent some 80 of his followers to the king of Ethiopian action and how the King received them protected them supported them and sent them back when Mohammed was established you all know that the first bilal of Islam is an Ethiopian you all know that one of the nurses that that brought up Mohammed is an Ethiopian there are some linguistic and other factors which corroborate is I am NOT going to go into that but simply the conclusion of this part is the coming of red major religions into Ethiopia it is an inside voluntary introduction of movement and not the other way round which has been forced upon the people and and the interaction of these three religions on the language on the life of the people even of the politics of the country which I am NOT going to touch is tremendous but anyway this is another major third factor that I want you to keep in the back of your mind and the first one that I want to mention is literacy is the alphabet that he opens the monks in particular who have been growing to Jerusalem for a long time and otherwise created we don't know who created it but all indications are it is easier and monks that created the easy-open alphabet and the consequence of that is upon our historical development is tremendous so that the first part I want you to keep in the back of your mind when you think about culture and development I mean I'm looking at education not in its narrowest sense it's the broader the broader cultural development that I think is important including schooling clothing school now let me go into the 4,000 years of history of education if I just want you to keep in the back of your mind there are probably five broad area or divisions the first part is the so called traditional education it's the education of the church schooling by Muslim Islamic education and earlier of course do Dyke education is repair I mean there are famous scholars in Ethiopia who have established themselves as scholars who speak Gil's Hebrew and Greek and that to be a scholar in some parts of the of the Bible without knowing gives in Greek or without knowing good and he break was considered to be a kind of a second class scholar but that is that's all gone now more or less so you have a history of education largely the Ethiopian church is the one that has influenced really the development of education Ethiopia the church somehow moved as you know from the north to the south education follows establishment of the churches in Ethiopia and that wherever there is a church more or less there is a school not that all the churches have school note that all the sports the schools were for all the time attached a monastery but by and large a large number of the schools followed the development and the expansion of the schools from north to south and west we don't know how many churches there are Nasir pair there have been estimates we think that probably between 30 and 35 thousand of them in the country in general this all the people who've done some thinking states the German Kidani the Ethiopian and Bishop and chart itself all think that there are probably between 30 and 35 thousand churches and there are probably over 10,000 to 15,000 schools around the country and literacies are restricted though in terms of orientation and emphasis religious but not exclusively religion religious legal training and even been some important handcrafts schools calligraphy and the school system has been established from as you all know it now from the beginning to a university level and there are centers of excellence in which people who are to qualify as professors have to go through even though they know the content they had to spend a year or two in that particular monastery for that particular subject to qualify as as a scholar and as a teacher I'm not going to bother you with this it's a very extensive area and if you're interested we can talk in detail about it but I just want to say to three things on this two that I think are important the first one is a tremendous contribution than if you're and monks have made to the development of education in Ethiopia this is something that if your parents do not realize we do not recognize the importance that these monks are made to the development of Ethiopian culture many of them have vanished in the deserts when the rosro transport they had to walk the desert from Ethiopia to Sudan to Egypt they had to go to Jerusalem and many of them have died have vanished but a few that have survived have made tremendous scholarship contribution they have gotten in touch with Greek scholars got in touch with Italian scholars work entitled German scholars and and and made tremendous contribution you all know the famous we D for instance the Italians father who who stablished is here been studies in Italy Rudolph in in Germany when you read the books that you read you get the feeling as if that these scholars have made those contributions by themselves but behind them their teachers were this is Europe animals they were the ones who taught them this and the process they learned German they learned Italian they learned French they are the ones who helped them understand the history of the culture and in some of the books that have been written and have introduced Ethiopia to the European world at that time were books that have been inspired and supported from behind by these monks so that's at the first element I mean this you could have names and names of these fathers that I've gone there that I made a tremendous contribution and I just want to say this is specially to my colleagues from Ethiopia that if our to pick a group of people that have made a tremendous contribution to help and cultural development it is not the Kings and the Emperor's it is amongst got up from a cultural perspective this are the ones who have made a tremendous contribution to our development at least from my perspective so that's that the the for the first period that it's a period of the church that I think probably let me leave it there if you are in detail Unferth on the second period is the introduction of modern education is here pair you know modern education into Ethiopia came very late finalists we talked of the traditional education which has taken place maybe for twenty to thirty centuries modern education is one century it's one century after all it's Emperor Menelik and Emperor Taurus that have that have started the move but largely technically it's melodic that established the first public modern educational system in Ethiopia in that is 1900 which is one century following Emperor Menelik came of course and perhaps lassi I'm simplifying simplifying the the period he was a very energetic and and probably from my perspective could be considered as the father of modern education with uff that apparatus nothing I just completed reading some 270 speeches he made on education and I tried to synthesize them and it's amazing how some of the concepts he has are as modern as some of the books and some of the volumes that have been written at the World Bank and UNESCO and UNICEF how did he get this education these concepts after he did go to a university at best high school even that is doubtful he had his a self-taught man but his period would be the period that I would consider probably the one that had the most impact in in initiative and the modernization process of Ethiopia the second period is the introduction of modern education but as you know that period was interrupted by the Italian occupation the the five period of the Italian occupation of Ethiopia did two things interrupted the energetic development of education and decimated and and and the word is used advised early decimated hand-picked and killed the few educated is he opens that that had been trained before before the morrow and so when Emperor came back after the Italian War the Second World War still coracoid in the future he found very few people modern education was with education to start the educational system so in in fact I just want to indicate to you that the history of modern education is some 75 years old it's really started after the Italian one fights it it's very act very act you could do many things in 75 years but I'm talking about history what is not not current events that let me result the second period lastly the third period is obviously the very important contribution as I said that Emperor made and his contribution is fantastic and he is the one who somehow had the idea that the only way to survive as a people the only way to keep the dignity of Ethiopia independent nation to have educated people and he wants to educate the people at any expense and he sent people abroad he pushed people abroad all over one over and in the process he may have herbs in the sense that when people came there were too much westernized in codes in that in the process they did not have the cultural context and they had really not based the educational system in transforming the traditional education which are survived Ethiopia for twenty centuries and that's that's one major problem that to have that as educators who have to take note of for the future development so the Emperor is the one who's credited for developing the colleges and the university I was a student when the Emperor came back to the war and one of those few students that can say I started when the Emperor came back and the schools that we used you know your barracks that were used with Italian army we didn't have a Ministry of Education we had a center we didn't have trained teachers and who are the teachers anybody that things knew something about either French speaking English speaking even Italian speaking Amharic speaking Arabic speaking who wants to open a school was incorrect open we didn't have a center to give guidance and so and I mentioned that because when we begin to really think through why so many of our young people started going hey wild in in in in the higher education system these are major factors that I think are intertwined I think that's higher education in in in the fourth period is what you call the revolutionary the revolution period it's a period in which Ethiopia overthrew the monarchy introduced a completely foreign religion they want to replace Orthodox Church with a Muslim church with Marxism Leninism people don't like me say that but the way it came the way it was purported though it was presented it was not presented as an idea as an alternative almost at the religion take it or leave it and if you don't like it you're the enemy if you have a different idea you are the enemy anyway that the fourth period this is a period where the student movement was was was was really tough let me say that by speaking of the student movement we need to acknowledge both parts there is no question that the one organized consistent group that wanted to bring about change initially what the students this is true this is true this is totally true but the student thought they know everything they even know how to run a government they even know how to digitally in versity they even know how to be a president of a university how to be a dean of education how to be a minister of education how to be an administrator now right there they knew it all the consequence is disaster that's that that the fourth period of Isabella story and the last one is a period which we are at the present time largely characterized by ethnicity ssin of the country in broad terms the current period has a positive side to it and a negative side to it the positive side the expansion of education the improvement of educational opportunity is phenomenal that has to be ignore that is true and that more people that did not have opportunity in the past I have this opportunity now the disaster is the approach that education is being developed now in in very many senses is very sad the quality is sad I maybe I should not be the one to judge that because it's ongoing and who have yet to judge it in the future but there is no question that the education has been too much politicized too much politicized education is the political venture social phenomenon we all know I think the the process of judging giving the necessary due position to educators and to people who know and the political ideology the balance between them is the one that will be able to judge whether they our leaders really have given its due process I think basically these are the you know have have probably just ran over this this this whole process so you have a period of the traditional education the beginning of modern education the emperor has lessened his contribution the revolution in this aftermath and the current period and what I want you to to think about and and and in one area that we have left out and that I want to come back and especially important as far as Africa goes and as far as DCF also goes and other societies is often there is a tendency to create education with schooling and that's not true African societies have lived the apes' societies have lived societies have their own ways of transferring themselves their knowledge their ideas their upbringing their living practices through our children through other ways and have done it very well and we tend to neglect that part meaning education literary education the non literate societies which have been white has been left out and that who have made a big mistake and this mistake has I have experienced it in 1958 1958 two years after I went back to Ethiopia there are the General Conference of UNESCO a conference of UNESCO called the mutual appreciation of eastern and western culture at values the mutual appreciation of Eastern and Western cultural values the meeting took place in Cairo 1958 and I went I don't know how I went but I was invited I went there were two Africans an Egyptian and me in that meeting and I listened for four days and Eastern meant Arab and Asia Western meant Europe and America and young women probably not tempered so I said where is Africa where is Africa and the answer came we're talking about literate societies so if you do not read or write you don't have a history of Education don't have a culture to write and so a movement started I it's a long story and it's a story that if you have has played a tremendous lot and Ghana has played a tremendous lot and Nigeria has played a tremendous lot and later on Kenya has had played a tremendous lot we said that approach cannot continue unesco africa has to be in it and the mutual appreciation of history and Western cultural values is robbed sided is prejudiced and that something has to be done this anyway ended in the major project the general history of Africa which you have now an eight volume general history of Africa I happen to be the first president of the Scientific Committee of that of that committee and that is how the African history rate is then started to be given due consideration again I'm I'm summarizing I said that because even within Ethiopia when you talk about the history of education you have other societies within the country who may not be literary in that sense but to have their own history one one area is the gada system of the Oromo people it's a very structured ordered organized system and that's how the education took place let me stop here at that I go on a property would go on too much I have been allotted only half an hour has taken more than half an hour I'm sorry I hope I have been you have understood me but if you don't please ask questions I'd be happy to interact well let me first start by saying it's been long time since I've been to Ethiopia I have not gone to Ethiopia I came to this country in 1977 when I joined the World Bank since then I've gone a couple of times and so all that I'm saying is maybe there are things within the country that I do not capture so I want I want that out clear but I do it I was going to an easier path I have lots of friends who the UNESCO and UNICEF and the World Bank so we keep in touch with what's going on in addition to Ethiopia the trend is expansion expansion expansion that's number one expansion is good but education is education you have you have there is the question of language then the question of contents the question of quality that part has been neglected in that what is me very much on Higher Education there is an interesting development there was one two universities went when I was there that the university in Asmara they tell me now that there are some over 20 universities the quality is a disaster the quality the disaster I have have been that with graduates that have come have talked with them have seen them and and and honestly I'm very much worried about about the quality in that respect but I've I hear that people are beginning to talk about quality being a problem it should have been from the very beginning comes the old school the emperor started hell as a university we have sent probably to this country's are 500 students that I know and they have come here to some 85 universities I'm now speaking just of America we have sent students to Britain after graduation we have sent students even to France and do you know the only two students that didn't make it for graduate level education and so in terms of standard in terms of quality my assumption is that somehow these people have done very well very well so the current trend is expansion it's good to provide educational opportunity but there needs to be some system the issue of planning the issue of managing higher education as higher education it needs it needs much more care than at present in my opinion as a nice European and very much worried very much worried us as what is going on even though I really applaud the efforts that expansion is taking place some people who probably do not understand the educational system are in charge because of their political affinity that is the only thing I could guess so the development is expansion which is good period I'm sorry but I'm very worried I'm glad you asked this question to me because there is no there is no doubt that people are coming out graduating in hundreds what kind of well at the primary level I have the latest statistics from the Ministry of Education me and no question that the teacher people ratio is a problem but that that anyway is all over so it's not anything particular to Ethiopia that is a people ratio the question of teacher training at the primary level I feel has improved has expanded has improved in my opinion my major worry is at the higher education level the World Bank is involved UNICEF is involved and so other countries are involved they all tell me that the issue of quality needs to be addressed the training of professors yes there we have a problem there I think the issue is a little bit more politicized the large number of Ethiopians educated that could go and and and and be useful to Ethiopia maybe many of them would may not be acceptable for variety of reasons including politics and understand that teachers are being recruited from India and from Nigeria it makes me sad when we started the university there are 30 events teaching when we finished there were 545 university teachers of these 60 percent for Ethiopians how did this happen systematically recruiting some of the younger brighter people sending them abroad after one year of experience and supporting them and track simply to say you'd at this stage of our development there are qualified if you pass that buta lies in a variety of ways but that is purely political issue well agricultural development I mean the majority of the Japan people are indifferent this is almost a cliche cliche in any developing societies a majority of the people are poor and people and that the educational system who have started the power to criticize me as an educator although I spent my life at higher level but I think a major emphasis should have been made at the to impact the rural area you may have heard of a program for the atfa investor service I don't know if we were worried when I was at the university the professors or of us got together and said what could we do the books are written for and anythi up an audience the majority of the teachers come from outside of Ethiopia how do we train these people to make them relevant to if your pesticide Society in the end you have to train our own people there is no substitute to it but that's going to take a long time you train the people it takes four years at the university level you send them abroad probably takes three four years for them to complete their studies eight years they probably come they need three four years for a first experience at 12 years for some people you know this is even at elementary level I'm not speaking of the sophisticated and the seasoned professor that has done the research work that has done exploratory work this takes probably 15-20 years so we have a good first group third generation of different so simply we started this one year of university service in which we said every versus the student at the end of his serve deer would go and serve one year and one year as a teacher people didn't like it at that time I was at the beginning of it I had we had our our president at that time with with NASA and intricate detail but we succeeded the students went and suffered one year we have follow-up studies special Frances Courtin has done follow-up studies and most of the students loved it and they said it helped them know their country I feel students that have been politicized didn't like it so that that was an attempt to see how how people could go and appreciate the rural area of the people if not solution at least they would come knowing that there is a problem out there and that they feel it so this was one attempt to answer your question any attempts that you know that that any government death by wave policy to develop an educational system revitalize the rural area I think in the right direction the issue would be what is the content how relevant is it who is bring the teaching how is this followed with the economic policy of the country the land policy of the country this needs to be inclusive here thank you just to say you know I'm not here to I mean I wish you would ask me that question I would we have to talk about for about an hour because this topic exactly that but let me make sure that we are on the same wavelength as far as the period of emperor haile selassie there is no question that educational opportunity has been limited but educational system has been established from scratch the current system is benefiting from that from that built up experience which is now expanding that's that's for sure and don't forget that we're talking about a monarchy when you talk about a democratic form of government in which I mean so when we judge we need to judge also within that context that's the context that we need to establish but one thing is sure and that is a fact and you'll find that when when when my book comes out the Emperor's contribution to Ethiopian society without any discrimination whatsoever that part will be subject the concept of ethnicity is a current problem I'm not saying that it didn't exist then but the emperor never identified whether you are this that tribe are a good student or a first class student go and the statistics prove it so-called very handful of people that are both England we know the 112 people who are for this program with some care and the allegation that some people make that the emperor is making selectively that absolute force the statistics and evidence with that that part is you know our but your other points that we should not try to exaggerate the contribution of education that Emperor has made visibly the current issue is also correct because sure now the Advaita system is much more expanded education opportunity has reached more people this is history you know this is history you built one on the other as I said he started from scratch there was nobody at that time he built a school system and by the time he left there was a large number of students that have a background completed high school when we started the university there were not enough students from high school to go to the university there are men and I could tell you when we were trying to train secondary school teachers we couldn't find so we had to go from place to place and get people from grade 11 and gives them special training now that problem is gone in fact to have hundreds of thousands of high school students that you can select from at scarce electrum but still we are talking about the National Development who are talking about an educational development we are talking about influencing the minds of youth in that we need to pay some care how this mind I think you can control the I think dr. cleaner will be happy to discuss with you and thank you so much this has been a presentation of the Library of Congress visit us at loc.gov

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Length: 59min 20sec (3560 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 16 2010