Education in Eritrea

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Education in Eritrea is officially compulsory between seven and 13 years of age. One of the most important goals of the Eritrea's educational policy is to provide basic education in each of Eritrea's mother tongues as well as to develop self-motivated and conscious population to fight poverty and disease. Furthermore it is tooled to produce a society that is equipped with the necessary skills to function with a culture of self-reliance in the modern economy. However, the education infrastructure is inadequate to meet current needs.

There are five levels of education in Eritrea, pre-primary, primary, middle, secondary, tertiary. There are nearly 238,000 students in the primary, middle, and secondary levels of education.There are approximately 824 schools^[1] in Eritrea and two Universities (University of Asmara (UoA) and the Institute of Science and Technology (EIST)) as well as several smaller colleges and technical schools. Current centers of tertiary education in Eritrea include, the College of Marine Biology, the College of Agriculture, the College of Arts and Social Sciences, the College of Business and Economics, the College of Nursing and Health Technology, the Eritrean Institute of Technology and the University of Asmara.^[2]

The education system in Eritrea is also designed to promote private sector schooling, equal access for all groups (i.e. prevent gender discrimination, prevent ethnic discrimination, prevent class discrimination, etc.) and promote continuing education through formal and informal systems.

Barriers to education in Eritrea include traditional taboos, school fees (for registration and materials), and the opportunity costs of low-income households.^[3] Statistics vary at the elementary level, suggesting that between 39 and 57 percent of school-aged children attend primary school; only 21 percent attend secondary school. Student-teacher ratios are high: 45 to 1 at the elementary level and 54 to 1 at the secondary level. There are an average 63 students per classroom at the elementary level and 97 per classroom at the secondary level. Learning hours at school are often less than four hours per day. Skill shortages are present at all levels of the education system, and funding for and access to education vary significantly by gender (with dropout rates much higher for girls) and location. Illiteracy estimates for Eritrea range from around 40 percent to as high as 70 percent. "The Ministry [of Education] plans to establish a university in every region of the future."^[2]

[edit] References

^ (2005) Baseline Study on Livelihood Systems in Eritrea. National Food Information System of Eritrea.
^ ^a ^b Habtetsion, Efrem (2006-08-03). On Developing Higher Level of Education. Retrieved on 2006-08-03.
^ Kifle, Temesgen (2002). Educational Gender Gap in Eritrea.