Education in Ethiopia

Ethiopia has achieved remarkable progress in expanding access to education over the past twenty years, but challenges related to equity remain significant, and learning outcomes have declined in recent years.

Numerous crises, including the COVID-19 pandemic, conflict situations, drought and floods have forced millions of children out of school since 2021. As of 2022, around 90% of 10-year-old children lacked basic reading skills.

Ethiopia is working with GPE and other partners to improve learning outcomes with a focus on equity. As prioritized in the country’s Education Sector Development Plan 2020-2025, the government aims to enhance the quality of teaching and learning by better supporting school leaders and teachers with training, aligning teaching and learning materials to the new curriculum, and establishing more effective quality assurance mechanisms.

To improve access to education, Ethiopia and partners will reconstruct damaged schools, establish school feeding programs where needed, and implement accelerated learning programs for children who have dropped out of school.

Additional interventions to make the education in Ethiopia more equitable and inclusive include community awareness programs on the barriers to education for girls and children with disabilities, among others.

As part of its investment in civil society advocacy and social accountability efforts, GPE’s Education Out Loud fund is supporting the Basic Education Network Ethiopia (BEN-E) for the 2020-2023 period. This builds on previous support from the Civil Society Education Fund (CSEF).

Learn more

• Ethiopia is part of the KIX Africa 19 regional hub.
• KIX research projects:
• The Back2School Project: Scaling an Accelerated Learning Model for Out-of-School Girls in Rural Communities in Ethiopia, Kenya and Tanzania
• Inclusive child to child learning approach: Scaling up inclusive play based learning for smooth transition from pre-primary to primary school.
• Data Must Speak about Positive Deviance Approaches to Learning
• Observatory on COVID-19 Responses in Educational Systems in Africa