Ethiopia

With few educated Ethiopians to teach the children and educated foreigners still fully committed to successfully defeating the Axis Powers and ending World War II, it was difficult for Ethiopia to rebuild its education system. Few Ethiopians remained who were either qualified to teach or had teaching experience. At all levels Ethiopians had to rely on foreign teachers to reopen their schools. For this reason, the courses taught and the methods of instruction were not uniform. These varied from one school to the next. The English, Swedes, Americans, and other nationalities conducted classes as they would at home. In 1962, after several decades of rebuilding and training teachers, the Bureau of Educational Research and Statistics reported that 62 percent of Ethiopia's teachers had only elementary education or lower, 13 percent had 3 to 4 years, 16 percent had 1 year of teacher training, and 9 percent had some teacher training at the community level. Under colonial rule, the best teachers taught at the university level and the worst at the primary school level. Primary school teacher salaries were so low that it was difficult to recruit and retain teachers with even a modest primary education. Ethiopia put the most money into the lower grades because it was believed that only a broadly educated mass could earn enough disposable income to support a small elite of doctors, lawyers, bureaucrats, artists, and administrators. Without such a semi-educated mass, the elite could not flourish. Ethiopia needed many teachers to reach this goal and to train them required constructing teachers' colleges.

A joint UNESCO- and USAID-funded and equipped teacher training program at Debre Berhan Community Teacher Training School failed because it required students to learn how to operate brick making equipment, build milking sheds for dairy cattle, make butter and cheese, and grow the vegetables that they ate at school. Parents objected that they wanted students to study academic subjects because the parents could teach them how to farm at home. Their attitude toward manual labor was negative. Many graduates were not accepted as agricultural experts when they returned home because elders culturally refused to accept orders or instruction from youth. Mothers pulled daughters out of the school complaining that they could learn hygiene, child-care, cooking, and handicrafts at home. They argued that their daughters did not have to go to school to learn such subjects. More than 42 percent of graduates dropped out of teaching after 5 years of service. More than money or materials, the limited number of teachers slowed the expansion of mass education. This teacher training college was abandoned after many parents transferred their children to other schools more academically oriented. Attitudes and culture held education back in postwar Ethiopia. Social Impact Assessments that predict the social response to development became mandatory by the 1970s to help avoid such costly cultural mistakes.