Multilingual Educational Reform and Teacher Training in Ethiopia

Ethiopia has only recently emerged from decades of brutal and socially taxing civil war. The new government is a coalition faced with creating a modern pluralist nation-state upon an historical foundation of totalitarianism. Education generally, and language policy more specifically, continues to be one of the most contentious factors on the Ethiopian social and political scene. In a country with 82 distinctly different languages and ethnic groups, this is no small matter. After enduring centuries of rule by Amharic speaking 'Northerners', new regional authorities have elected to purge the Amharic language from the teaching curriculum, in favour of local languages for the primary years, and English in the secondary schools. The result has been one of the most dramatic attempts to reform a modern educational system ever undertaken, entailing the translation and publication of massive quantities of textbooks, the redeployment of former staff and teaching resources, and the development of new regional and local educational authorities. This article examines the political implications of linguistic policy, and reports on a recent visit to an Ethiopian Teachers' Training Institute (TTI). Utilising teacher training as an entry point, the article discusses many of the difficulties inherent in the imposition of major educational reform under severe resource constraints.