Modern Education Development, Challenges and Current State in Eritrea (1839 to 2016)

Compiled and researched by Resoum Kidane

Pt.6a Primary and secondary education in post liberation

In 1970s the escalation of atrocities by Ethiopia killing squads in the urban areas caused a decline in the number of secondary schools, in Asmara’s Teachers’ Training Institution (TTI) and in the numbers of Asmara university students includes professional teachers. Tsega who graduated from TTI and joined the EPLF in 1975 in her interview mentioned that when she was a student at Asmara Teachers’ Training Institution (TTI), in the whole TTI School out of around 500 students there were only 16 Eritreans, the rest were Ethiopians.

By 1991, the number of Eritrean teachers declined dramatically and half the teaching force of 4,000 in Eritrean schools was Ethiopian. According the Human Rights Watch the number of Eritrean teachers in Eritrean schools fell from 3,000 to 1,200, as many of them joined the EPLF and ELF or went in to exile. (Africa Watch 1993, cited by Rena, 2007.) Those teachers like Tesga who joined the EPLF or ELF contributed considerably in developing and expanding education within the liberated areas and refugee camps in Sudan between 1975 and 1991.

One of the early schools in the liberated area was the Zero Revolutionary School which was opened for orphans, refugees, children of fighters, and those who had run away to join the front but were too young to fight.   This school was started with not more than 5-8 professional teachers.

Les Gottesman writes about Zero school,

“…it started with about 150 students and not more than ten teachers. The situation was very difficult; imagine what you can do with ten or less than ten teachers, and inexpert teachers. There was no curriculum, there were no school supplies, and there was no school experience. But they created a miracle. They sketched the elementary curriculum and started the education, or the teaching process, for the first time in Eritrean languages, Tigrey and Tigrigna, since the federation administration…

Teaching materials in Tigrey language was also prepared by the ELF in 1977. According (Negash 1999, p.59) the curriculum section of the ELF on their own initiative without consulting the executive committee wrote in Tigre under the presupposition that people had to learn in Tigre. The teachers who prepared the educational books were new comers to the organization. Because they agreed among themselves that the official languages of Eritrea ought to be Tigrinya and Tigre, they prepared and printed material in Tigre for first and second graders. The executive committee, however, said that “teaching in Tigre was not our policy and decided that the book be burned and it was burned accordingly. The main opponents were Abdella Idris and three others from Tigre speaking ethnic groups.

Apart from the above piece of information there is a scarcity of information about educational development within the ELF.  This section only highlights the development of education within the EPLF in the 1970s and 1980s and then provides an overview on the progress of education in the post-liberation period.

Additional to the Zero Revolutionary School, the EPLF had also opened over 150 schools with 30, 000 students between 1976 and 1978.  Sadly many of these schools were closed when most liberated areas were retaken by the Ethiopian forces in 1978. Nevertheless the Ethiopian counter-offensive did not disrupt the expansion of schools and the growth in the number of student inside the liberated areas. By 1983 the Zero Revolutionary School had more than 3,000 students.  Moreover, in 1980s, the EPLF opened elementary schools in the Sahel region at Agraa, Rora Haban, etc., where children had had no opportunity to gain educational access. Indeed the EPLF not only succeeded in delivering educational access in the remote rural areas for school children but also for adult literacy class by carrying out a literacy campaign on a national level.

In 1983 the EPLF launched its first National Adult Literacy Campaign, for this task  the Zero Revolutionary School sent around 451 students to serve as teachers in the literacy campaign  Regarding  National Adult Literacy Campaign, Green (1994, 35)  states that  in the first year alone of the adult campaign, 13,704 women registered for classes and 67 percent completed the course  By 1989, illiteracy rates fell on average by between 50-70 percent in these areas

Furthermore during critical times of the armed struggle, while the Derg launched another anti-EPLF offensive “the Ba-haer Negash Offensive “whose objective was the capture of Nakfa within five days in 1985, the EPLF opened a new vocational school at Wina with 100 students: The school offered a two-year course in some seven skills including auto-mechanics, electrical engineering, metal work, carpentry and civil engineering.

Connell (2011) states that as students grew older, higher grades were added and in 1989, the new junior school was moved to Nakfa.  By 1991, when the school closed, it had 3, 000 students from first to eighth grade.

When Eritrea was liberated in 1991 the standard of education was totally under the heel of an Ethiopian administration.  According Rena (2006) before the independence of Eritrea, the Derg regime systematically dismantled the educational infrastructure and corrupted the system. It degraded the education standard to one of the lowest even by African standards (Rena,2002: 3). In 1991, this became one of the main challenges facing the Provisional Eritrean Government in delivering good standard education for primary and secondary schools.

Later, the Ministry of Education replaced   the old educational curriculum with the one developed by the EPLF for primary, junior and secondary education. There was quite good development and growth in the number of students.  Kidane, Eyob [which?] states that between 1991 and 1998 the school-age enrollment increased by 40%. He adds that by1998 more than 375,000 students were enrolled in more than 829 government and non-government schools.

Additionally Temesgen Kifle (2002) states that from the academic year 1992/1993 until the academic year 2002/2003, the number of students enrolled in day classes grew whereas the gender gap at all levels of education has widened year on year.

The Educational Gender Gap in Eritrea was also reported by the UNESCO, UNICEF, World Bank and other writers. The 1998 UNESCO classification of countries also ranked  Eritrea as a country with moderate gender gap.  No improvement has been made to narrow gender gap in the enrolment year on year (Conly and Chaya, 2000, p. 2; UNESCO, 2001a,p. 18). The UNICEF also reported on the gender gap in Eritrean education showing that there was a higher enrolment of boys than girls,  50 percent and 43 percent respectively.

43% of girls and 51% of boys are in primary school

The  World Bank report) indicated that the gender gap began to widen soon after independence in 1991. The ratio of female -to male enrollment for primarily and secondary education fell against the background of rapid increase in total enrolment (Brixiova, 1994:4)

Furthermore at a secondary level only 13 per cent of eligible girls attend secondary school (Gruber 1998, cited by Rena,2007). This shows that the enrollment of girls was still lower than of boys at 30 percent/20 percent respectively.

Although  between 1991/92 and 2000/01  there was an increase of 17.7 % in the enrollment of girls, which means that 49.5 percent of all school-age girls were still out of school. With respect to boys 38.8 percent have no access to primary schooling as yet. From this figure one  can conclude that primary schooling access in Eritrea is still very low and that girls suffer considerably from inequitable access (Ephraim 2007:115). 

Gruber (1998, cited by Rena,2007) states at the primary school level, girls have lower enrollment rates and higher-grade repetition rates than boys. Ephraim in his survey (2007) also found that there are a substantial number of school age children out of school. Ten years after independence in 2001/2002, about 270,000 school age children (53.98%) have still not enrolled in primary schools, which presents a major challenge to the government (Eritrea, Essential Education Indicators, 2002 cited by Ephrem, 2007). Relatively from the academic year 1992/1993 until the academic year 2002/2003 the number of students enrolled in day classes grew despite the outbreak of the war between Eritrea and Ethiopia, from 1998 to 2000.  Evidence of this can be seen from a table above.

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