A paper entitled Macroeconomic and Social Overview of Eastern Africa presented in the 23rd regional integration experts meeting held in Eritrea suggested that Ethiopia and other African nations ought to invest in lifelong education to reduce the number of illiterate individuals.
The paper presented by Andrew Mold, Officer in charge at UN Economic Commission for Africa, indicated that over 57 percent of women aged between 15 and 45 in East Africa are illiterate.
Indicating that he took the figures from Demographic House Survey 2016, Andrew said that Ethiopia and Kenya, the two largest economies in the region, faced high illiteracy rates among women. It is incumbent upon governments to monitor and address girls’ dropout rates in primary and secondary schools.
It is important to go beyond the numbers to seeking to understand and address the story behind the numbers, he stated. Reports show that around 8.5 million youths are entering the job market in the 14 eastern African countries such as Eritrea, Ethiopia, Uganda, South Sudan, Madagascar, Tanzania, Burundi, Comoros, Djibouti, Rwanda, Seychelles, Somalia, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Kenya.
Ethiopia has been offering integrated functional adult and non-formal education to address 19.4 million illiterates aged 15 to 60 since 2011/12 academic year witnessing encouraging progresses in Amhara, Oromia and SNNPs despite the low success in emerging states, especially in Gambella. Recently, the Ministry of Education (MoE) disclosed that it is finalizing the preparation of the sixth Education Sector Development Program (ESDP) aimed at improving literate by achieving adult education to assist the nation to join middle-income countries by 2025.
MoE Adult and Non-formal Education Senior Expert, Yoseph Abera said that the ministry has prepared a two-year-long national adult education strategic plan to achieve Integrated Functional Adult Education that incorporates health, agriculture, women, civics and ethical education among others.
The major challenges that hinder the ministry’s effort to reduce illiteracy through adult education are the absence of formal structure at the regional level, instability and negligence to nurture indigenous knowledge and its traditional way of dissemination. There is a plan in the sixth ESDP to expand community learning centers across the country. The centers have an important role in creating an appropriate environment for experience sharing, awareness-raising programs advocated via mass media, proper training rooms for workshops and sporting fields.
Currently, the ministry piloted two centers in Addis Ababa, Amhara, Oromia, SNNPS and Tigray aimed at expanding them across the country. It is revising a strategy to form a governing manual of educational strategy for adult and lifetime educations to complete the preparation until July 2020.
The sixth ESDP consists of five components including IFA, post-IFA, women empowerment and non-formal education among others. The preparation to install governmental structure at regional level education has got due attention from the prime minister. The new structure will help to attain about 8.8 percent education budget specifically intended for adult education. It is remembered that more than 20 percent of the national budget goes to education.
As to him, there is an increasing interest among adults to follow short term skill training, to follow regular or formal education after taking the extension and distance educations. This year, more than two million adults have been registered to attend the IFA and post IFA education. Globally, there are over 750 million illiterates of which 75 percent is found in sub-Saharan Africa. Women share more than 60 percent of the sub-Sahara illiterates. The 2016 Central Statistics Agency report noted that there are about 21 million illiterates aged 15 to 60.
Stakeholders ought to exert more efforts to improve women’s literacy that shares over 50 percent of the 21 million illiterate Ethiopian adults of the country. “We should have to follow the suit of success of Somali region in addressing adult education to women and bringing them to education centers,” Yoseph noted. All stakeholders including the media ought to support the effort to address adult and non-formal education to reduce illiteracy that will lead to bringing all-rounded national progress supporting by skilled and competent human resources.
The Ethiopian Herald February 25/2020
BY YOHANES JEMANEH
