By Hailegebriel Endeshaw
Staff Reporter
ADDIS ABABA – (BORKENA) – Only 13 of the 320 schools in Gedeo Zone of South Regional State meet the standard of the Federal Ministry of Education, sources said. Wazema Radio said that 95.93 percent of schools in Gedeo Zone are below the standard, set by the Ministry of Education. Only 4.06 percent meet the set standard, according to Wazema Radio.
Wazema quoted head of Zonal Education Department, Zemach Kifle, as saying that almost all schools in Gedeo Zone “do not meet the basic standards” set for schools by the authorised Ministry. According to Zemach, the main targets are on status of the construction of the school facilities, convenience for teaching-learning activities, human power, library, water, electric power, toilet, school leadership and management.
Taking all these into consideration, over 95 percent of the schools in the Zone can be said well beyond the standard, required by the Federal Ministry of Education, Zonal Education Head, Zemach said.
He said that a large number of student population drop out of school. Of the 266,700 students in the Zone, over 18,000 have stopped coming to school this current academic year, according to the head.
Economic and social crisis and security threat around the Zone have been accounted for the school dropout, according to Zemach.
Residents in Gedeo Zone fled their areas due to security issues. Following this, five schools have been closed during the last academic year for failing to give services. This academic year students were forced to discontinue their education as people evacuated from four Weredas where Oromo Liberation Army (OLA-shene) is active.
In Coffee-growing Zone, Gedeo, the community encourages and pushes students to engage themselves more in coffee business than pursuing their education.
__
__
To share information or for submission, send e-mail to info@borkena.com
Telegram Channel : t.me/borkena
Join the conversation. Follow us on twitter @zborkenato get the latest Ethiopian News updates regularly. Like borkena on Facebook as well. Subscribe to YouTube channel