Only 12 percent of children in Ethiopia complete primary education and achieve minimum learning proficiency, a newly joint report by the Global Education Monitoring Report at UNESCO has revealed.
The report titled “Lead for Foundational Learning” een by APA on Wednesday stated that the overall learning levels across Africa are also lower than previously thought. The report comes on the heels of several factors that have further strained Ethiopia’s already fragile education system.
According to the report, Ethiopia already has four out of six essential school leadership policies but it has yet to implement two key measures: mandating induction programs for new principals to ensure students are adequately prepared for their roles, and embedding national professional standards or competencies for school principals within national laws or policies.
More than 50 percent of schools are not operational due to ongoing wars, displacement, and resource shortages. In many areas, classrooms have been destroyed or repurposed for emergency shelters, teachers remain unpaid or displaced, and thousands of children have been forced out of school entirely.
Beyond conflicts, persistent budget constraints, food insecurity, and inadequate infrastructure have deepened the crisis, leaving regional education bureaus struggling to restore normal learning conditions.
Although the report recognizes the contribution of Ethiopia’s large-scale school feeding program, which supports children’s learning, it adds a new dynamic: the importance of maintaining minimum learning standards.
Ethiopia’s school-feeding program is 65 percent government subsidized and currently reaches 38 percent of all primary school children, compared to an average of 43 percent across the continent, the reports noted.
The importance of mother-tongue education is another area the report commends Ethiopia. However, it stated that Ethiopia does not have a national learning assessment framework, a tool that only 20 percent of African countries have established to measure and align learning objectives across education systems.
“The most concerning element is not just that learning levels are so low, but that systems are operating in the dark,” said Manos Antoninis, Director of the Global Education Monitoring Report at UNESCO.
The report noted that “only 20 percent of African countries have national assessment frameworks while the majority of them lack clear learning objectives required to drive targeted reform.
MG/as/APA