Utmost efforts underway to send all school age children to school: Ministry

26 November, 2007

Addis Ababa, November 26, 2007 (Addis Ababa) - The Ministry of Education said utmost efforts are underway to send all school age children to school with a view to meeting the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

Education Minister, Dr. Sintayehu Woldemichael said the ministry is working to improve the quality of education in the country side by side enabling all children benefit from education services.

Dr. Sintayehu was speaking here on Monday at a CODE-Partners Workshop Building Competencies to Increase Literacy for children.

The Minister said quality improvement package is designed and is under the process of implementation with a view to enhancing quality of education.

He said the package has six programmes namely teacher development program, school improvement program, curriculum improvement program, information and communication technology improvement program and education leadership and management improvement program.

Dr. Sintayehu said encouraging results have been achieved by the strong commitment of the government, the concerted participation of the community and by the unstinted support of the local and international NGOs.

The Minister said CODE-Ethiopia, CODE-Canada and CIDA have made immense contribution by organizing 82 rural reading rooms and providing useful reading books to present reference books for children and this in turn enriches the tradition of reading in rural areas, among the children and the community around.

This initiative benefited those children who could not get sufficient books from their schools and homes to improve their knowledge.

Enabling children to learn in their mother tongue is a means of making children become confident in their identity, apart from its pedagogical importance and this is a constitutional right in the country.

Primary education is offered in the country in more than 23 nationality languages at present, the minister said.

Ambassador of Canada to Ethiopia, Yves Boulanger on the occasion said CODE-Ethiopia is putting special emphasis on the needs of girls and women, especially in encouraging them to use the libraries.

Ambassador Boulanger said among the lessons learned by development practitioners over the last fifty years, it is clear that there is no sustainable development without reaching out to women and girls.

In Ethiopia, there is increasing recognition that progress towards equality between women and men, while it inevitably challenges certain traditional norms and practices, is a necessary part of the development process, the ambassador said.

Executive Director of CODE-Ethiopia, Tesfaye Dubale said on the occasion that the most encouraging part of the work of CODE-Ethiopia is the development and publishing of books in three local languages, Amharic, Tigrigna and Oromiffa.

Executive Director of CODE-Canada, Scott Walter said the workshop is in effect the launching of a process, one that will help map out the directions to be taken to collectively address shared vision of a sustainable literate environment in the developing world.

Participants drawn from Mali, Tanzania, Malawi, Mozambique, Senegal, Ghana, Canada , Caribbean and North America including Ethiopia are in attendance at the five-day workshop.

The Ethiopian News Agency