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Addis Ababa Street Children Beg for Education

The Ethiopian culture, with its attendant parables and folklore, is replete with emphasis on the significance of education. The Ethiopian psyche indeed is tainted with prestige attributed to an educated individual or groups. Reinforcing the latter modality and depicting its metaphor, there is nothing parallel to the Tigrigna proverb which goes on as follows: ‘an uneducated person cannot salvage & unpolished mill cannot grind’ - Zey Temahre Seb Neyedhin; Zeytewekre Methan Neyetihin-), and its Amharic counterpart, ‘let an educated person finish me’Yetemare Yigdelegn-). Both proverbs may sound glorifying the educated elite, but closely examined they in fact convey a profound message of the indispensable and crucial role education plays in social transformation and development.

The close to 100,000 children roaming the streets of Addis Ababa, and the sizable portion of that demographics who yearn for education, must be studied in the context of the Ethiopian conception and perception of education. These children have encountered a major dilemma between a shoeshine cum domestic servitude for survival, and joining other fortunate kids in the schools. A significant majority of the street children are beggars and thieves, and yet a sizable number of these children fall under the International Labor Organization (ILO) classification of ‘Worst Forms of Child Labor Convention’, that incidentally “outlaws child-labor practices.”

The ILO Convention, however, is not realistic given the level of development of poor Third World countries where jobs for survival are considered blessings. Unless and until issues of development and poverty are properly addressed and solved, the thousands of Addis Ababa kids will not find themselves in the corridors of the congested classrooms, let alone the relatively quality education schools.

Ethiopia is not alone in facing a multitude of potential students who are condemned by the street-level culture rather than the affective domain of the schools. IDEA had reported a similar phenomenon elsewhere in Africa (read ‘Schools Without Desks and Clinics Without Nurses’ down below on this homepage), and to be sure Addis Ababa is not an easy city to govern. The semblance of its ecological aroma, beautiful climate, and bustling markets conceal a dangerous subculture (the mushrooming of gangs and underage female prostitutes) that systematically arrests development. The municipal administration of Addis Ababa (the mayor and his associates) deserves credit for trying to clean up the city and implementing some constructive programs at combating the ills of this metropolitan enigma. But, the mayor’s major challenge is going to be rehabilitating the street gangs and enrolling the relatively good guys in public education. A reasonable portion of the City’s budget should be allocated to a project that, in turn, invigorates the schools and accommodates the street kids begging for education.

UNICEF also deserves credit for its Child-to-Child Survey in Ethiopia, which is “part of global youth project accounting for children not in school in order to accelerate the enrolment of out-of-school girls and boys.” For further information on the UNICEF initiative and the Ethiopian Teenagers Forum that are translating the Child-to-Child Survey into action, please click on the following link: http://www.uncef.org/infobycountry/ethiopia_21759.html

Early on, IDEA had posted ‘Education for All Week 2004’ sponsored by UNESCO and the Global Campaign for Education which lobbied for 104 million children world-wide who have no access to education (scroll down and read ‘Update on African Education’ on this homepage).

Noble ideas and impressive educational programs could be designed, but unless implementation and sustainability are guaranteed and anticipated, they would become meaningless paper works. The action-oriented programs require, of course, a favorable climate, and a community of learners, whereby teacher-student relations are positively reinforced to further attract and encourage the street children to join in the education march and development. In this grand project of transforming gangs into productive youth citizenry, the Ethiopian Ministry of Education should chip in with full force. In the final analysis, however, we all are responsible for saving the street children from the vagaries of poverty and the unforgiving environment they are exposed to.