Adult education is the practice of teaching adults between the ages of 15 to 60 year. It has been practiced across the world for generating well literate and skilled work force in a society. The program is balanced with the communities’ norm and value. Ethiopia is among the countries that are implementing adult education at national level.
Sensible reading, writing language and mathematical skills are the major subjects given for the adult learners. Currently 54 percent of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) Five years plan has been covered by the Ministry. And the rest 46 percent will be covered by the coming year ,according to Mohamed Abubeker, Adult and Non Formal Education Directorate Director with the Ministry of Education (MoE).
According to the director the performance shows variation among different regions and cities. SNNPRs, Oromia, Amhara and Tigrai regions have a better practice of the program while the performance is very low in Afar and Gambella regions. Similarly the performance of Harar City is the best of all cities across the country. Therefore an actual work must be done for all regions and cities for achieving the desired result. However, women have outperformed men by two percent.
As the director stated the goal of the ministry is increasing women participation by engaging them in the program, by making them facilitators and experts. In order to solve the problems related with the implementation of the program, the ministry has made effective and extensive study in collaboration with German Adult Education Association (DVV) International across the country.
According to Mohamed, the ministry has taken the responsibility to modernize its’ system for accessing the program for all illiterate adults. The study result indicates that there was problem with the system; therefore, it tries to put what has to be done for the future. First, the ministry must cascade the system from the federal level to each regions and woredas. By then, there must be experience sharing among the regions and the cities even at the woreda level in order to close the gap on the performance of the program between them.
Meanwhile, Mohamed also specified that a common frame work is being prepared and the implementation has started by hiring qualified and well experienced experts for the sector. Beside, motivation campaigns have been prepared for politicians to take their part for investing their time on adult education by considering it as one of the development tool for the country. In early time, the government of Germany was working as a partner with the Ethiopian government on adult education program for many years. And currently DVV is widely working with the Ethiopian government as a partner to bring about effective result on the Ethiopian adult education system.
The DVV is making financial and technical support for the sector in addition to the federal and regional budget of the Ethiopian government. The adult education is being given in all cities and even in rural areas. Therefore the facilitators have been selected from each surrounding in accordance with their education level. In earlier time students who had completed their grade 8th up to grade 10th education were facilitating the program or even teaching the adults. Currently, the ministry has revised the prerequisites in order to facilitate the program.
Accordingly, the facilitators are expected to complete grade 10 education and must attend a year-long training by the government. On doing this the prior task for the government should be improving the salary of the facilitators. In addition to this, Mohamed said that different activities must be done for changing their life. Giving short term trainings, making them acceptable by the civil service and making good salary for them are among the necessary measures to be taken.
Promoting effective integrated community based adult education by increasing women participation is the prior goal of the ministry in addition to increasing continuing education in all regions and modernizing the organization for a better quality adult education in the future. According to Mohamed there will not be sustainable development on the area of illiterate adults.
Even farmers will harvest improved product while they participate in the program through learning many skills. Accordingly adult education is a development question in addition to its social benefit. There up on the goal will never be accomplished unless all the stakeholders like the Ministries of Agriculture, Health, Labor and Social Affairs, Women, Children and Youth and all others participate on the program in taking their role Mohamed noted.
Herald January 26/2019
BY HIZKEL HAILU
