Education and Training in Ethiopia An Evaluation of Approaching EFA Goals

alternative schooling centers tend to have fewer resources than formal schools, are takenless seriously and offer a lower quality of education. The teaching staff work for lowersalaries, or even as volunteers, and have only some or none of the rights accorded to theircolleagues in the formal system. This is not to deny that alternative schooling centers canbe successful and have a useful role to play in reaching difficult non-attenders. However, itis clear that an awareness of the potential pitfalls, close monitoring, and research areneeded. Non-formal education may be used as a low-cost means of boosting enrolmentfigures while paying little attention to quality and gender implications.One of the issues that militate against girls feeling comfortable in the schoolenvironment is a lack of adequate toilet facilities. Planning and constructing appropriateschool buildings that make the most of their potential as learning environments is apriority. The extent to which the school area is a gendered space with a differentialinfluence on the learning and development of girls and boys is a question that must beaddressed in future development work.The sector-wide approach (SWAP) can make possible policy changes that would beunlikely to have been achievable in the project mode. This was a widely held perceptionamong the people interviewed during the case study. In this respect, significant policydecisions include promoting the establishment of village education committees and quotasfor the representation of women together with recruitment targets for female teachers anda decision to employ all-female paraprofessional teachers and undertake a review oftextbooks and curricula with a view to promoting positive gender messages and images,thus avoiding marginalization and stereotyping.6.3 RecommendationsUniversal primary education in Ethiopia. Only a little more than half of the Ethiopian 7-14-year-olds go to school. The country is far from achieving the goal of universal primaryeducation by 2015 despite improving access to and the quality of basic education beingpriorities. As Finland is also committed to enhancing universal primary education as ahuman right, the following is recommended:• supporting Ethiopia’s efforts to reach universal primary education by 2015.Education sector development programme (ESDP). Ethiopia has developed its educationsystem on the basis of a sector-wide policy and framework since 1994. The GoE launchedin 1997 a two-year Education Sector Development Programme. Finland participated inmonitoring the initial phase of its first 5-year period. The second period of the ESDPstarted in 2002. Finland should continue to support the ESDP especially as regardscapacity building at the woreda and school levels and the promotion of inclusiveness andmulticulturalism. The attractiveness of and survival in primary school are problems forgirls. The walk to school is long and dangerous for girls in rural areas. The followingmeasures are particularly recommended:60