Education and Nation Building in Ethiopia: Past and Present Developments

Abstract

Education has pivotal roles in transforming economic and social development of countries. However, the ways under which education is organized to contribute to countries´ development is different and such differences have been at the center of discussion across all countries and regions. Education in Ethiopia is not an exception. Therefore, the present article chronicles the historical and present development of the Ethiopian education system and the roles it has been playing in building the nation. While the roles of education in nation building are dubious, one may infer that education has been playing instrumental roles in the social and economic transformations of Ethiopia. However, the course of education and its roles to nation building in Ethiopia was not straightforward. During the commencement periods, modern education was introduced to modernize the country. However, its latter developments incline to westernize the country at the expenses of the shortly lived effort for modernization. Consequently, education and nation building seem to be loosely coupled in Ethiopia. To curb these, the Ethiopian government has to learn from past failures and should revisit the language of instruction. Besides, commendable effort may still be important to align education with the deeply entrenched endogenous knowledge and cultural traditions of the country.