Abstract
Ethiopia is the second most populous nation in Sub-Saharan Africa. It has been a key partner and actor in political and economic affairs of Africa in general and the Horn of Africa in particular. Despite its record of independence, Ethiopia have been struggling up heal battle against persistent human development challenges and troubled internal political history. In recent decades, however, renewed geopolitical factors made Ethiopia attract more and concerted efforts. Ethiopian stakeholders and its development partners work hard towards the objective of development.
Human and economic development of Ethiopia depends on developments in its education. But stakeholder groups contend about education in Ethiopia presenting their visions of education. The vision contains both diagnosis of the problems and solutions deemed necessary. Two key stakeholder groups and their respective visions has been the focus of this study. These are the Ethiopian government and Ethiopian scholars. By employing critical discourse analysis methodology the study explores the educational discourses of the Ethiopian government and Ethiopian scholars.
According to the findings of the study there are two contrasting discourses about the state of education in Ethiopia. The current Ethiopian government, undertaking several fundamental changes such as education sector review, education and training policy and education sector development program, claims that education in Ethiopia is developing. On the other hand, however, Ethiopian scholars who have studied the Ethiopian education, point that education in Ethiopia has been in crisis and is about to collapse. Their argument builds on their observation of the faults of Ethiopian government policies which bypasses the Ethiopian cultural context due to the development paradigm assumed.
The main objective of this study has been to register the different discourses of education about education in Ethiopia and discuss the factors and implications. It emerged from the study that Ethiopia is yet to find a right theoretical or conceptual framework for its education and development. The scholars and the bureaucrats have responsibility to heed to each other if Ethiopia is to build itself on a better foundation that pays due attention to its own cultural resources while open to adopt and adapt from others.