We saw last week that Ethiopia had a long established system of Church education, in which students advanced from one stage to the next. Now read on about specialised studies: Memorisation After the students had been read and studied the Psalms, the Qal Timhert, or oral lessons, would begin. The whole of Psalms would be …
Pre-war’s Ethiopia’s educational system began to take shape after the Emperor Haile Sellassie’s coronation in 1930. At that time a Ministry of Education and Fine Arts was established under Blattengetta Sahlu Sedalu, a former graduate of the Menilek School. The Ministry’s First Secretary was Ato Kidina Mariam Aberra. The Ministry, according to Zervos, was then …
The 1920s, as we saw last week, were a time when increasing numbers of young Ethiopians were despatched for study abroad. This policy was actively promoted by the then ruler, the Regent and Heir to the Throne, Ras Tafari Makonnen. His attitude to this educational enterprise is apparent from a speech which he made, on …
We saw last week that Ethiopian education advanced significantly in the 1920s, and that the then ruler, the Regent, Ras Tafari Makonnen, identified himself passionately with the idea of its modernisation. We must now turn to parallel – and no less important – developments in the field of printing. Prize-giving Before doing so, however, let …
The founding of the Tafari Makonnen School, mentioned in last week’s issue, was followed, in January 1926, by the introduction, by Regent Tafari, of an Education Tax. Based on a six per cent ad valorum tax on all imports and exports, it was expected to raise a revenue of 240,000 Maria Theresa dollars a year. …
Throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the period under discussion in this series of articles, a small number of Ethiopian ecclesiastics visited Jerusalem, where there was an Ethiopian Convent. It seldom housed less than a score of Ethiopians, and sometimes at least twice as many. Most of the inmates knew only their own languages, but …
State education in Ethiopia took an important step forward on April 27, 1925, when the Regent Ras Tafari Makonnen opened the Tafari Makonnen School despite opposition from traditionalists, who are said to have delayed the project for a couple of years. In his opening speech on May 2, he declared that the time was passed …