Schooling without Learning: Lessons from Ethiopia

Ethiopia has achieved a remarkable economic growth rate of 11% per annum in the last 12 years. At the same time, the government of Ethiopia has been heavily investing in education in the last two or more decades, and managed to expand access to education at an extraordinary rate. In contrast, educational quality has been low and with the current trend the country risks missing on the target for SDG4. The growing number of graduates is met with limited structural transformation in the economy as the government pursued agriculture-led development strategy for a long time. The agricultural sector and the service sector with both comparable shares account for 80% GDP while the industrial sector accounts for only 20%, which in turn is dominated by the construction sector. Also, the country has witnessed increased rate of educated unemployment and underemployment while industries suffer from lack of skilled manpower and high level of labour turnover.