Civic Education Augmentation in Ethiopia
Melesse Asfaw, PhD
April 2, 2008
Ethiopia is one of the few African countries never to lose its independence. It is as large as France and Spain combined and has one of the richest histories on the African continent. Ethiopia continues to face numerous challenges and barriers in its successful transition to democracy and market economics. These problems include a weak economy, regional centrifugal forces, internal power-devotee imposition, and nascent state institutions. Yet, Ethiopia's prospects to be a sovereign, stable, secure, and prosperous egalitarian nation is moving forward since it depends not only on politicians' activity, but also on ordinary citizens endeavor and full involvement.
Seventeen years is a short period in the long process of human history. However, in the past 17 years Ethiopia, an ancient and mysterious land, has undergone tremendous changes far beyond comparison with those in any other era. Ethiopia has bidden farewell to the poor, backward, isolated and stagnant tyrant serf society, and is forging ahead toward a modern people's democratic society featuring constant progress, civilization and opening-up, and its modernization drive has won world-renowned achievements.
First, the situation in which a small number of military autocrat and their followers monopolized Ethiopia's political power and material and cultural resources has been thoroughly changed, and people in Ethiopia have become masters administering Ethiopian society, and the creators and beneficiaries of the society's material and cultural wealth. As a result, the people's status and quality have greatly improved.
Second, the isolated, stagnant and declining old Ethiopian society has been thoroughly smashed; economic development has advanced by leaps and bounds; people's material and cultural life has greatly improved; the modernization drive has developed in an unprecedented way; and an overall-progress situation has appeared in the constant reform and opening-up.
Third, Ethiopia has thoroughly abolished ethnic oppression and discrimination and cleaned up the filth and mire left over from the old Ethiopian society; Ethiopia's ethnic characteristics and the fine aspects of its traditional culture have won full respect and protection under the regional ethnic self-government system; with the progress of the modernization drive, they have been imbued with the current contents that reflect the people's new life and the new requirements of social progress, and have thus been carried forward in a process of scientific inheritance. The development in the past 17 years has demonstrated the historical inevitability of Ethiopia's march toward modernization, and revealed the objective law of Ethiopia's modernization.
The above-mentioned successes of democratization in Ethiopia depend mostly now on strengthening civil society. To influence the real development of the situation in Ethiopia, it is necessary to place our stakes not on this or that political person, but on the people as a whole, on improving men's and women's political culture and citizens education, as well as cultivating the values of open society.
For a long period of time Ethiopia had one-party propaganda instead of real education for citizens. The consequences of long term totalitarian rule and the absence of nonparty civic education were the provinciality and hostility of public opinion and its adherence to ideological principles and uncompromising disagreement. After the Soviet system collapsed, in most countries, multi-party propaganda took the place of the communist ideological monopoly but no nation-wide structure for political education was established. Now we urgently need to fill this gap. We need to eliminate the vacuum of integrative influence but at the same time avoid substituting state civic education for one party's propaganda.
As Inayatullah, and Blaney (2004) mentioned, democratic modernization involves a process of social transformation in which policy formation to facilitate changes in political and civic culture must occur alongside economic and technological development. Indeed, civic and political culture is an important indicator of constitutional order and social stability (Inglehart and Welzel, 1990). National security, respect for law and order and the success of policy are determined by citizens' readiness to obey these laws and at the same time to monitor and criticize the authorities (Gilman, 2003).
Several philosophers such as Wallerstein (1976), Hopkins (1996), and Joas (2003) agreed that Civic Education Institutional Development (CED) is one way to develop civil society since it is able to provide an essential antidote to political destabilization, confrontation, and threats to national security. As a society in transition, Ethiopia strongly needs a developed system of civic education. This kind of education system is a powerful means for political socialization, involving the individual in the political system, and strengthening civil society on the basis of equality, mutual responsibility, and civil self-respect. Civic education must help people overcome political apathy, teach more peaceful forms of political and civic behavior, and help provide tools to solve social problems in non-violent ways.
We need to demonstrate the difference between political propaganda and civic education. The legal and equal existence of various ideological and political positions of parties may be balanced by an integrative state, which upholds the common interest (not only of one group). One of the ways the state may do this is through civic education conducted by nonpolitical institutions and citizens may be trained for public life.
Teaching such essential topics as human and civil rights, the constitution, and voting helps entrench the philosophy of liberty in the hearts of youth, particularly respect for human rights and the limitation of power by the constitution. This liberal education is the only way to create the free and critical intelligence required for citizenship. It is of extreme importance for Ethiopia since most of the political forces think that only a strong leader can be more beneficial than law, which shows the absence of appropriate democratic behavior and the philosophy of liberty.
The Action Plan for Civic Education Improvement in Ethiopia should be developed without delay. Its philosophy should be the cultivation of the principles and values of constitutional democracy and open society. It is this author’s personal view that the Plan should consist three main parts: Research Projects, Curriculum Development, and Civic Education Institutional Development. Every part needs to include separate, appropriate programs and projects to be realized by state bodies, non-governmental organizations, teachers' communities and volunteers.
1. The Research Projects part should provide assessment of the state and challenges of civic education in Ethiopia by means of documentary analysis, interviews with teachers, students, local authorities and executives, and analysis of the opinion poll, identification of content and methods of civic education in transforming societies, studying of the civic education experience of sustainable democracies, conduction of conferences, seminars, workshops and so on, developing policy recommendations for all levels of Ethiopian governance.
2. The Curriculum Development part should involve in the creation of a civic education framework such as the standards and values of education for democracy, teacher training, foreign educators' fellowships to assist our teachers' professional development, radio and TV programs for citizenship education, series of articles and collections of materials and the preparation of textbooks, their translation and publication and voters' education.
3. The Civic Education Institutional Development should provide core values for the establishment of a regional network of resource centers, teachers' professional organizations, and NGOs as a means for sharing the best practices in this field. At the same time the idea of gathering of civic education organizations into an appropriate association may be take place. This part of the Plan provides for gathering the support of Ethiopian business, and securing Internet access for various groups of educators to provide an opportunity to discuss and share information.
In order to facilitate and improve the democratic modernization process and undertake various activities, it is mandatory to create a non-governmental institution for civic education. Scholars and educators should involve in the process of establishing such institute resource center to improve teaching about democracy and civics, assist in the formation of civil society, and facilitate the development of democratic awareness and citizens' politic culture, their increased, informed, and responsible participation.
As Simoniia (1992) clearly summarized it, the Civic Education Improvement program goal should focus on:
· Investigation of the issues of a democratic civic culture;
· Cultivation of the ideals and values of democracy;
· Initiation of new forms of civic education;
· Support of other non-profitable civic education associations' projects;
· Dissemination of education materials, texts, standards, and modern world
· Experience of civic education;
· Curriculum development;
· Organization of conferences, seminars, public lectures, work-shops, teacher training;
· Democracy participation skills training;
· Publications on democracy and education.
The civic education development process may begin from the nationwide discussion of appropriate issues. Such discussion should be called to attract public attention to the problems of civic education, to motivate the solution of these problems, and to promote distribution of the appropriate information.
It is this author dispassionate judgment that the development of civic education institute will result in a strengthened civil society, as well as democratization and stability in Ethiopia.
We would be grateful for any comments or advice you could offer.
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Inglehart, Ronald, Welzel, Christian. (2005). "Modernization, Cultural Change, and Democracy: The Human Development Sequence". Cambridge University Press.
Joas, Hans. (trans. by Rodney Livingstone) (2003). War and modernity (Polity Press, Oxford. See: "Modernization Theory and the Problem of Violence," pp. 43-55.
Simoniia, Nodari A. (1992). Synthesis of traditional and modern in the evolution of Third World societies (Greenwood Press, NY.)
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