System Trials

Debre Zeit like every other part of Ethiopia has undergone trial and tribulation to find a suitable education system. The core organization and instruction, especially reading and writing were more or less a continuation of the religious school systems like synagogue, church and Islamic school model. Below is a brief introduction of the Ethiopian education system presented by Dr. Aklilu Habte at Library of Congress. 

The soul searching has been focused on building a modern education system and how to teach foreign language, mathematics, history, geography and science. While the attempt at building a modern education system began in the early 1900, it was interrupted due to the five-year occupation of Ethiopia by Italy.

Rigorous work to reform the educational system of Ethiopia re-started after the Italians were driven out. The challenge was there no home-grown professionals to advise the government on how to organize the educational system. As was indicated “efforts to create a modern mass education system intensified, but this time under the influence of education advisors from Britain and the United States.” (Source: WENR World Education News + Reviews, Education in Ethiopia (wes.org)

In line with the British influence, Ethiopia adapted English as a medium of instruction in schools starting from grade three. In fact, in grade two, we started reading the Green Primer series like “The Giraffe who went to school” and others. Then from Grade three on until grade 5, all subjects except Amharic and religious studies were provided in English.

Besides the English reading books, Arithmetic’s was taught using Highway Arithmetic books. One thing that was missing is when developing the curriculum, it was simply a copy of the British system without due consideration how mathematics was used and thought in local religious schools. For instance, Ethiopia alrady has a number system that was different from the Arabic numerals. 

interestingly, there was a mathematics method developed by merchants in Ethiopia that was very advanced but was never thought in school when were young. “Ethiopian multiplication is a method of multiplying integers using only addition, doubling, and halving.”

Ethiopian multiplication – Rosetta Code is this system (methods of Ethiopian calculation) that powers today’s’ computers…… The ways they perform that calculation is almost exactly the same with the working method of a computer. Amazingly it seems centuries before the invention of computers Ethiopian traders crack the code that lies behind the modern the age”

Here is a video showing how the base two Ethiopian multiplication works:

Source: Sola Ray Ancient African Mathematics from Ethiopia | Sola Rey

The merchants are the source of Mathematical innovation. Besides the base two method, in one occasion, Taddesse travelled to a remote area in Arsi Zone to visit a market and talk to grain merchants. He was intrigued to find out that the merchant is using a Matrix Algebra to buy Grain. The merchant is not an educated man; however, he has a system of solving a problem. He has different grain to buy with different weight and price. Vertically he listed the weight from 1 to 100 Kg and horizontally the type of grain.

He gets the price per 100 kg of the different grain and then divides the price per kg. When a seller comes and puts his grain on the merchant’s scale, he only needs two pieces of information to give him the price, i.e., the type of grain and weight. He immediately looks up the cell for the grain type and weight and give him the purchase price. Quick, easy and fast.

There were several occasions when attempts were made to reform the school system. One system wide change was in 1962 when changes generally referred to as sector review was introduced. This lasted until 1974. The main change was to teach students in elementary school with the native language (Amharic) and conduct a national elementary school completion exam in grade 6. The students of the cohort of 1970 were in grade 5 and started to learn all subjects in Amharic instead of English.

They have been attending all subjects in English up until then. Also, they were the first to take a grade 6 national exam. The other local experiment was that was attempted in Debre Zeit was to assign students to classes based on reading score. Those who read well will be collected in class A, then based on the reading competence others will be placed in B, C, D etc. Students protested this elitist education which takes away the opportunity of learning and supporting each other and the principal and the teachers agreed to abandon the plan. 

The search for other models of education continued. The British influence gradually wanned and Debre Zeit school slowly moved to American influence. This is also the time when Ethiopia started to get more Peace Core teachers from U.S., The noticeable changes are in the approach where the American teaching is more like play based while the British is memory based. As to subject areas, the Americans stated to introduce set theory at the grade 9 level.

While the change to the educational system is still underway, the major change the cohorts of the 1970 experience was the move to Amharic at the elementary level, although it was starting at grade 5 and ended after grade 8 and the national exam given at grade 6. The was always national exam at grade 8 and grade 12. In the end, although it hard to assess the impact of the changes, just looking at the success of the 1970 cohorts both inside and outside Ethiopia, if not benefited them, it did not hurt them.