Trends of educational policy formulation and implementation in Ethiopia: A historical analysis

Pages: 264-272
Solomon Melesse Mengistie (Department of Teacher Education and Curriculum Studies, College of Education and Behavioral Sciences, Bahir Dar University, Ethiopia, East Africa)

Ethiopia, with its diversified cultural groups, has its own distinctive calendar, writing, art, music, poetic forms and numeration system (Alemayehu & Solomon, 2017). This seems to have laid a foundation to establish traditional education for the purpose of transmitting these cultural heritages to the next generation. In addition, the introduction of different religious beliefs into Ethiopia has also led to the introduction of religious education in the country. These social and cultural foundations were influential factors that made the philosophy of Ethiopian education to be the training of the child in the beliefs and social values of the society. Hence the purpose of education became the transmission of worthwhile cultural heritages of the past to reconstruct the education system of the present. By doing so, retainable and worthwhile cultural heritages can be scrutinized and sustained; nonscientific and dogmatic beliefs and harmful cultural practices can be eliminated or at least be minimized. At the same time, knowledge of modern school system is to be used as a frame of reference to evaluate the merits and demerits of the traditional school system. This paper, after having outlined a review of the history of Ethiopian education past to present, has suggested some relevant recommendations.