ADDIS ABABA – Oromia Development Association (ODA) said female students’ attrition plummeted to nearly zero percent in 500 schools in Oromia State by 2019.
Abdulaziz Mohamed Planning and Assessment Director at ODA told The Ethiopian Herald that the Association has been hard at work towards implementing eighty four different projects to support the education, health sectors as well as to enhance the efforts for clean water supply and youth center developments.
According to him, ODA provided 1,000 parents of top scorer female students with reinforcements. In order to help the students keep up their best performance, the Association has also awarded the students a solar light that will enable them study at night.
“The effort is not only to contain female students’ dropout but it is also part of the struggle to prevent early marriage in the whole Oromia State. ODA has also a boarding school, which admits high ranking students with entrance exams. This year’s top scoring students at national level are from our boarding school. They have made a new record which has not been witnessed in 27 years,” he noted.
The Association has built 22 schools, five youth centers and four health centers and handed them over to the public furnishing the necessary equipment. “We have also completed 48 clean water projects while 90 different development projects are currently on going with different status,” he said.
According to Abdul-Aziz, ODA had invested over 136 million Birr on the eighty four fully completed projects. On the other hand, “The saving for education program is also one of our projects that is aiming at ensuring financial security for the students’ higher education. Close to 39,000 students are parts of the program and have been able to save more than 49 million Birr. This is done by creating awareness among the children’s parents. Traditionally, parents give their children cattle or land. Now we have brought that as a modern system,” he noted.
The Ethiopian Herald, Sunday Edition July 28/2019
BY HENOK TIBEBU
