Mereja.Forum

[EthioRedSea]

TPLF-EPRDF has made a big progress in the education sector. Ethiopia has now about 40 state universities run by the federal government. There about 5 privately financed centres of higher education graduating with degrees. The progress in the education sector stand out and we are happy Ethiopia is one of the countries with high skilled labour. These youn men and women could once work in Europe and USA as there is not much employment in Ethiopia.

Meles Zenawi once defended his massive education programme that it is better to educate Ethiopians even if there were not enough jobs for all. This is true. Many yound Ethiopians have their own companies. The trend is there will be more private companies from Ethiopia that could employ thousands of Ethiopians. One example is the arir travel branch. Some Ethiopians have been trying to work in this branch privately. We need to work more. I imageine some budget airlines coming in the next few years.

Ethiopia would to exapnad it's higher education. There should be about 70-80 state owned universities, for each 1 - 1.5 million people. Given a population 110 million, Ethiopia would need to educate it's youth for a better future.

The other point is that of the quality of education. Ethiopian student need to compete with all students in the world for jobs. Ethiopia is not part of africa culturally. We are an ancient country and should compare ourselves with Europe and Asia. The quality of education should be comparable to that of Europe and Asia.

In this regard, we need to use English as a working language. No Ethnic language should a working language. There should more TV and radio programms in English. We can learn from Kenya, where English is the working language.