Modern Education in Ethiopia: Praise or Blame Worthy?

Abstract

Societies value education as means of arriving at advanced thinking and achieving improved lifestyles. Modern education has paved extensive avenues into discerning many of the secrets of life. Being aided by information and communication technology that unprecedentedly compressed space and time, modern education has helped people’s mode of life become much better than ever.  The introduction of modern education to Ethiopia is only more than a turn of a century now. At its inception, it did not enjoy a warm welcome from two main circles: the church and the nobility. Skepticism was in order largely due to the grim experiences the country had faced from what was considered ‘foreign’. Today, its utilitarian state of affairs is being questioned, while its initial skepticism of moral imperative has not yet faded away. The objective of this limited article is to slightly scratch the surface of the journey of our education system in historical, socioeconomic and political perspectives and pave ways for further discussions among educators, policymakers and the public to respond to current ill at ease concerns in order to set future strategies in place.

Key terms: education, modern education, knowledge, test/exam, school, educators

DOI: 10.7176/JLLL/100-04

Publication date: January 31^st 2024