Ethiopia: Stimulating school leadership and ownership

• In Event: Roundtable Session
  In Refereed Round-Table Session (English): An international comparative study on the policy-implementation linkage in lower secondary education development in African and Asian developing countries

Proposal

In Ethiopia, there were ineffectiveness of policy-implementation linkage when Hiroshima University and Addiss Ababa University research team initiated the research. Many beautiful education policies were stocked as “documents” in the federal government. On the other hand, some schools employed relevant education practices from those sleeping documents by themselves.
We chose a case study of the schools where the study was conducted are situated in Oromia Regional State, which is one of the large states in Ethiopia. The study involved two purposefully selected government schools (Olankomi and Holeta Secondary Schools) in the region. Olankomi has been adopted as the ‘intervention school’ while Holeta has been adopted as the ‘comparison school’.
The Olankomi secondary school conducted designing and utilizing effective school-based tutorials. The school-based tutorial employed strategies such as re-teaching contents or re-designing regular lessons to make the instruction clearer or more personalized for the beneficiary students. Much emphasis was placed on worksheets, practical exercises and exam questions. The practice is inclusive. That is, the school-based tutorial accommodated students with different abilities (high-, medium- and low-achieving students) and of different genders. The students were from different ethnic groups (Oromo, Amhara, Gurage, etc.) and social classes (child labourers, domestic workers, and children in areas of unrest). The subject teachers performed the tutorials outside of the regular school schedule after the usual lessons. Peer tutoring (students at a higher grade provide tutorials to students of lower grades, and students with the same age, grade, or academic status serve as tutor) was also sometimes involved.
The research team analyzed those effectiveness of school-based tutorial through comparative analysis. As a result of the research, students’ achievement, interest to study and some indicators were improved compared with Holeta as the controlled school. The presenter try to explain the more details of research result.
Throughout these research, policy makers, educational officers and school leaders could become aware of the major problems that teachers and students encountered in their school-based tutorial practices and take the necessary measures to address these problems. Teachers could also develop positive attitudes towards the importance of school-based tutorials and commit to teaching. Above all, students will improve their learning and achievement. Moreover, the findings of this study can guide further research and policy formulation in the area of teachers’ professional development and students’ learning improvement.

Author

• Tatsuya Kusakabe, Hiroshima University