Ethiopia has a glorious history of repulsing foreign aggressors for centuries but regrettably embraced the western education system sidelining the rich heritages of indigenous knowledge as inferior to modern education. For almost a century, Ethiopia continued to import her education system from various western countries including Italy, France, Britain, USA, and Russia and now back to the US system. The issue of quality education currently on agenda does not seem to effectively consider the role of indigenous education and knowledge in promoting quality education in Ethiopia. Quality education is currently understood from the perspectives of western education system which should be checked for relevance.
Benchmarking Ethiopia’s education system based on western education system may not be a problem in the short run or as input for own education system but copying western education system at the expense of ignoring or even discouraging the development of indigenous education is not only degrading the multiple cultures of the country but also forgetting or not grasping the real essence of civilization.
Indigenous education in Ethiopia refers to the traditional systems of knowledge transmission that existed before the introduction of modern, western-style education. These systems were deeply rooted in local cultures, values, and ways of life and played a crucial role in shaping Ethiopian society.
Knowledge was passed down orally from elders to the younger generation. Learning was practical and experience-based, focusing on skills needed for daily life. Elders, parents, religious leaders, and community members served as teachers. Traditional religious institutions like church school and (for Christians and) and Quranic schools (for Muslims) were key centers of education. The Ethiopian Orthodox Church played a major role in preserving Geez language, literature, and moral teachings. Quranic schools focused on teaching Arabic, Islamic laws, and values.
In old days, education was practical, teaching farming, craftsmanship, traditional medicine, and community leadership. Boys often learned agriculture, hunting, and leadership, while girls were taught household management and traditional medicine. Traditional systems like the Gadaa system (Oromo) provided political, social, and leadership education. Customary laws and elders’ councils were used to teach peace-building, justice, and decision-making. The Tuma Meko Bili’s system of legislature among the Oromo people deserves to be studied in greater detail as an input for modern law making system in Ethiopia.
Monasteries of Ethiopian Tewahedo Orthodox Church for instance at Lake Tana and other monasteries in Amhara and Oromia remained the custodians of religious and non-religious manuscripts which were used for liturgy while monks also recorded their observations on secular findings.
Elders from various ethnic groups across the country determine the day on which certain celebrations like traditional New Year is to be conducted by using astrological knowledge they have. For instance, the Gifaata New Year celebration day is determined by elders using their knowledge of astrology and astronomy. New Year celebration among the Sidama people known as Fitchee Chambalala could be studied and well researched on how elders determine the date and the level of their accuracy.
Ethiopia has more than 7000 plants and herbs that communities have been using for healing various diseases for thousands of years. Church scribes and monks who were interested in transferring their knowledge to the current generation have already documented some of these plants. At present only few institutes of higher learning like Addis Ababa University, Adama University, Mekele University and Jimma University are engaged in limited researches on these herbs. Given the importance of these plants, clear research has not been done and is rarely shared with concerned organizations. Moreover, there is no enough coordination at the national level.
Several attempts have been made to process herbs at factory level but enough effort is not being exerted to produce more drugs and ointments that have their origin on herbs. Practitioners of herbal medicine have already been organized under a national association but they are not strong enough to influence government policies on traditional medicine.
Traditional environmental conservation schemes by Konso people are an excellent example of how people use traditional knowledge to solve their environmental challenges.
The Konso Cultural Landscape is characterized by extensive dry stone terraces bearing witness to the persistent human struggle to use and harness the hard, dry and rocky environment. The terraces retain the soil from erosion, collect a maximum of water, discharge the excess, and create terraced fields that are used for agriculture. The terraces are the main features of the Konso landscape and the hills are contoured with the dry stone walls, which at places reach up to 5 meters in height.
The walled towns and settlements (paletas) of the Konso Cultural Landscape are located on high plains or hilltops selected for their strategic and defensive advantage. These towns are circled by between one and six rounds of dry stone defensive walls, built of locally available rock. The cultural spaces inside the walled towns, called moras, retain an important and central role in the life of the Konso. Some walled towns have as many as 17 moras. The tradition of erecting generation marking stones called daga-hela, quarried, transported and erected through a ritual process, makes the Konso one of the last megalithic people.
The traditional forests are used as burial places for ritual leaders and for medicinal purposes. Wooden anthropomorphic statues (waka), carved out of a hard wood and mimicking the deceased, are erected as grave markers. Water reservoirs (harda) located in or near these forests, are communally built and are, like the terraces, maintained by very specific communal social and cultural practices.
Ethiopia’s indigenous textile technology is one of the oldest in the world. While Europeans were wearing leather products during the Dark Ages, Ethiopian men and women weaved cotton fabrics and appeared in wonderful attire unknown in Europe. Today some attempts are being made to export cotton fabrics with modern fashion but is still in limited amount. It is interesting to see how the Chinese are learning these technologies by producing them in their factories and re-exporting them back to Ethiopia.
Ethiopia had a number of philosophers like Aleka Yenesew and King Zarayacob who wrote on a philosophical world outlook that could be compared to European philosophies of various ages.
Zara Yacob is most noted for this ethical philosophy surrounding the principle of harmony. He proposed that an action’s morality is decided by whether it advances or degrades overall harmony in the world. While he did believe in a deity, whom he referred to as God, he rejected any set of particular religious beliefs. Rather than deriving beliefs from any organized religion, Zara Yacob sought the truth in observing the natural world.
In Hateta Zara Yocob he applied the idea of a first cause to produce a proof for the existence of God, thus proposing a cosmological argument in chapter 3 of Ze Hateta: “If I say that my father and my mother created me, then I must search for the creator of my parents and of the parents of my parents until they arrive at the first who were not created as we [are] but who came into this world in some other way without being generated.”
However, the knowability of God does not depend on human intellect, but “Our soul has the power of having the concept of God and of seeing him mentally. God did not give this power purposelessly; as he gave the power, so did he give the reality.” He argued too against discrimination, predating John Locke by decades,[1] in chapter 6 of Hatata, starting the chapter with: “All men are equal in the presence of God; and all are intelligent since they are his creatures; he did not assign one people for life, another for death, one for mercy, another for judgment. Our reason teaches us that this sort of discrimination cannot exist.”
Ethiopia boasts of ingenious alphabets written in Geez and later on in Amharic. The development of both Geez and Amharic literature dates back to the period of Axumite civilization. The religious institutions like the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, Muslim and evangelical churches have all it is divided into ancient, medical and modern literature.
All the above examples show the importance of preserving, developing and disseminating indigenous knowledge and education of Ethiopia that has developed over time. The author has mentioned only few of them for demonstration. The point at hand is what is to be done to revive the development of indigenous knowledge and education in the country. The author of this article would like to suggest the following ideas.
Developing a catalogue of indigenous knowledge and education as practiced among all the ethnic groups is very important. It is necessary to develop sector oriented national database that could be used by local and foreign based researchers
The Institute of Ethiopian Studies which is a custodian of historical and cultural resources of the country could have additional section devoted to indigenous skills and education and develop a national archive for this purpose.
Quality education in Ethiopia needs to be redefined and developed to combine modern and traditional education in a more creative manner. It is of vital importance to combine traditional education, theoretical knowledge and practical knowledge delivery so that education could serve as a tool for development and resolution of the major problems of the country.
Curriculum development will be more relevant and applicable if indigenous knowledge and modern education is skillfully combined in a single system of education at all levels.
The author suggests the establishment of a special institute for the development of indigenous education with the support of modern technology including digital and AI inputs.
BY SOLOMON DIBABA
THE ETHIOPIAN HERALD FRIDAY 14 MARCH 2025
