Awra Amba RJ 300612 EN - Contacter un comité local d'Attac

Awra Amba, a current experiment of utopian socialism
According to the 1994 Education and training policy of Ethiopia, first cycle is a primary education
that comprises grades 1 through 4 and gives basic education.
Picture 16: The Awra Amba public school in April 2010.
There were in level 1 to 8 in April 2008 613 students aged 7-16 (from the age of 5 or 6 according to
Yi07/4 – Question 36 in Annex), including 164 from Awra Amba. They have one hour of
preparation and four teaching hours a day from Monday to Friday, from 7am to noon or from 12.30
to 17.45. In March 2012, these same levels 1 to 8 are attended by 764 students, whereas levels 9 and
10 are attended among others by 13 children from Awra Amba (Crespo, 2012). The Awra Amba
school has been growing rapidly in the number of students enrolled (by 25 % in two years), which
would be due to its higher level than its neighbours according to community members (Crespo,
2012).
In the first cycle, each class has a single teacher, whereas in the higher levels, a teacher teaches
several classes, probably per subject (Yi07/74). Curricula are produced by the Amhara region
(Yi07/84). According to our survey on site in 2010, teachers earn on average 973 birrs a month, i.e.
54 Euros, with a pension of 50 % at age 60 approximately. Pay goes from 35 Euros a month for a
teacher with one year of training after level 10, to 71 Euros for those who completed the first four
years of university. Most of the teachers came from Amhara region and some from Harar region,
about a thousand kilometres away.
The students from Awra Amba are admitted in grade one at the age of six or seven, after having
attended the village kindergarten, whereas students from neighbouring villages can attend school for
the first time at the age of 14, even later (Yi07/73-74). The school gives an entrance exam to the new
students, and they can enter directly grade two to five according to their level: because they have
attended either the church school, or the Awra Amba kindergarten, or an alternative three-year
education programme (Yi07/89-90). Moving from one cycle to another is not made at a fixed age,
but according to the level (Crespo, 2012). Yirga (2007, 89-90) thinks the Awra Amba children have
the privilege compared to children from neighbouring communities of being able to skip the first
grades without having really attended school: it is in our opinion more the result of the progressive
behaviour of the Awra Amba community facing children and education, rather than an undue
privilege.
The Awra Amba children are more hard-working than others: the attendance rate is 100 % for the
community children, but only 90 % for the other students according to the head master, Mohamed
Alemie, 29 (Jo10b/7). Before going to school, they gather in the village centre under the authority of
a member of the education committee (Yi07/80): see Picture 17. They are the first to arrive –
grouped – at school, and the last to leave – in line, 10-15 minute after others. These grouped journeys
– the smaller in front – is the expression of their solidarity: "if we do not help each other, we are not
different from animals". But at the same time, it forbids chance encounters with young neighbours
and therefore to interact with them (Yi07/81-82).
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