As its known, education is the key to building a better future, so to ensure a better

future for todays children there are three priorities that the UN Global Education
Initiative focuses on. The three priorities are to put every child in school, to improve the
quality of learning, and to foster global citizenship. In this paper you will see how these
priorities are carried out and met in the education system of Ethiopia.
Priority one is to expand access to education and put every child in school. Based
on the data in Figure 1, Ethiopia has a decent school enrollment percentage however it
could be higher. The data collected in the graph does date back to 2006 so that percentage
could be higher or lower at this point. There may be valid reasons as to why some
students arent able to attend school. According to the UN Global Education Initiative
many of these barriers include unaffordable costs, a shortage of classrooms, humanitarian
emergencies, gender discriminations, and child labor. Unfortunately for some children
life circumstances get in the way of what many of others may think is a necessity for a

child, like attending school and getting an education.

Figure 1: Ethiopia's primary school enrollment percentage in 2006. Ethiopia. (n.d.). Retrieved November 11,
2015, from http://data.worldbank.org/country/ethiopia

Priority two is to improve the quality of learning and Ethiopia is making an effort
to improve their education systems based on the data in Figure 2. Barriers listed on the
UN Global Education Initiative for good quality education are shortage of qualified

teachers, lack of learning materials, weak foundation for early learning, challenging
family environments, language barriers, and ineffective systems to evaluate the
performance of students. Some of these barriers cant be helped and for others there is
nothing that the people of the education system can do to fix the problem, but there are a
handful of barriers that can be changed. Figure 2 shows two of the target goals that were
set with the Ethiopia General Education Quality Improvement Project II. One target was
to increase the percentage of teachers with appropriate qualifications and as its shown,
the target is not yet made however as of 2014 the Ethiopian education system had made
and improvement. The other target goal was to have school with printed curriculum in the
regional language and as of 2015 the target was met.

Figure 2: Ethiopian General Education Quality Improvement Project II. Projects & Operations. (n.d.).
Retrieved November 11, 2015, from http://www.worldbank.org/projects/P129828/ethiopia-general-educationquality-improvement-project-ii?lang=en

Lastly priority three is to foster global citizenship. Education must also be

relevant in answering the big questions of the day. Technological solutions, political
regulation or financial instruments alone cannot achieve sustainable development
(Priority #3: Foster Global Citizenship). Education has a large impact on the outcome of
the future but what good is it if students arent learning how to survive in the real world?
Barriers that could get in the way of fostering global citizenship are outmoded curricula
and learning materials, lack of teacher capacity, and inadequate focus on values. Figure 3
shows the number of schools that have had a new computer lab installed for access to
private infrastructure in MCIT. It shows that the target is set at 300 and as of 2015 no
progress has been made. New learning materials such as computers talked about in the
graph below are important when it comes to priority number three of the UN Global
Education Initiative.

Figure 3: Ethiopia General Education Quality Improvement Project II. Projects & Operations. (n.d.). Retrieved
November 11, 2015, from http://www.worldbank.org/projects/P129828/ethiopia-general-education-qualityimprovement-project-ii?lang=en

Overall Ethiopia is making an effort at meeting the three priorities of the UN

Global Education Initiative. The education system has improved in the last two years and
is on an upward spiral towards meeting the targets of the Ethiopia General Education
Quality Improvement Project II. The Ethiopia education still has a ways to go to improve
and meet the three priorities, however they are making an effort.