Ethiopia - Nonformal Education

Restoration of Ethiopia's education system was an impressive feat which included adult education. As early as 1948, the emperor opened the Berhanih Zare New (Your Light Is Today), a school and cultural institute whose ultimate purpose was to branch out into the field of mass education so that every person in the Empire would become literate in a prescribed period. Plans were made to adopt a simplification of the Amharic alphabet as a vehicle for achieving this end. Nevertheless, the goal of universal literacy remained elusive.

The adult literacy rate in 2001 remains at 35 percent. The main beneficiaries of adult literacy have been women who traditionally were less likely to be educated then men. Female enrollment in most schools is less than 34 percent, but in adult literacy classes it exceeds 50 percent in rural areas and 74 percent in cities.

Distance learning, via radio and television, beams 1,200 lessons per year in 10 languages to millions of Ethiopians in remote regions. Impressive gains by the Zemecha suggest that if they could agree to stop fighting one another, Ethiopia could eliminate illiteracy.