Ethiopian Ministry Of Education faces massive backlash about Amharic language learning in schools

Tigrai Online , August 25, 2019

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Tigrai people will not let their children to learn Amharic in elementary schools .

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The Ethiopian Ministry Of Education announced last Wednesday August 21, 2019 that it will be rolling out a new education road map in the next Ethiopian academic year.

The new Ethiopian road map will be radically different from the education system that was in place for over 27 years. The new education road map will launch 6-2-4 system next year replacing the 8-2-2 system introduced by the EPRDF when it came to power.

The minister for education, Tilaye Gete, in a press conference told journalists that a decision has been reached to replace the old Ethiopian education system by the new one.

Minster Tilaye Gete disclosed that based on the 6-2-4 educational system students will have six years of primary school, two years of junior high school, and four years of high school education. The new Ethiopian education system is exactly the same as the imperial time or the Dergi time education systems.

The above change is not the only change in the new educational system in Ethiopia. Another outrageous and radical change announced in the new education road map to be implemented in the next Ethiopian academic year is all first graders throughout Ethiopia will start learning Amharic (federal working language) in the first grade. Currently Amharic learning starts in third grade in Tigrai and in fifth grade in Oromia. We are not sure what year Amharic learning starts in the rest of the regional states in Ethiopia.

Forcing kids to learn Amharic the working language of the federal government is absurd and it will be rejected outright by many of the regional states in Ethiopia.

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The Amhara elites after they came to power roughly about a hundred years ago successfully used their language as a weapon to destroy many languages, weaken others and dominate the Ethiopian people. Amharic was forcibly thought to every Ethiopian that went to school as mandatory subject. If students pass all their subjects with flying colors, but fell Amharic they will fail the class and they weren’t allowed to pass to the next grade level. If one applied for any job and their Amharic wasn’t satisfactory, they will be denied the job. Many Amharas attribute speaking Amharic with being Ethiopian. The author of this article almost came into blows with Amharas more than once when he challenged them, to be Ethiopian you don’t have to speak Amharic. Most of them still think Amharic is an official language of Ethiopia but it is not, it is a working language of the Ethiopian federal government. In the past 27 years after the TPLF/EPRDF introduced the current education system all the Ethiopian people started to learn in their own languages especially in Tigrai and Oromia the regional governments used the news system to develop and flourish the local languages in their respected states. At the same time the use of Amharic was significantly diminished in Ethiopia.

The new proposed Ethiopian education road map is another futile attempt to reintroduce the discriminatory old educational system to Ethiopia by the Amharas. The foolish endeavor of the Amhars trying to create a new Ethiopia in their facsimile by imposing their language is dead. Now they are trying to turn the clock back to the fake imperial time and transform non Amhara Ethiopians which constitute about 88% by assimilation using their language as a weapon.

This idea is dead on arrival because one of the main reasons why the people of Tigrai fought for 17 bitter years was to use their own beautiful advanced Tigringa language. If the federal government pushes this silly idea of forcing Ethiopians to learn Amharic, it will be considered as a declaration of war and every single Tigrawai will pick arms to fight to the last drop of blood. We will assume it will be the same in Oromia when it comes to the forcible use and teaching of Amharic language.

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The Amharas are trying to destroy the federal system and the current constitution which guarantees nations and nationalities of Ethiopia to use their languages in their regional states piece by piece. Every Ethiopian should stand up in unison to reject this illegal move by the Ethiopian Ministry of Education which is led by an Amhara nationalist.

No Ethiopian in his/her right mind will support this misguided Ethiopian federal government policy to reinstate the failed Amhara social engineering to dominate the Ethiopian people using their language.

Our view is all the Ethiopian regional states should completely drop Amharic language from their curriculum. Tigrai state should totally ban Amharic in its schools, in Churches, public events, and all government offices except to serve native Amharic speakers who happen to be in Tigrai.

There is very little benefit or none at all for non Amharic speakers to learn Amharic because there is no scientific or philosophical knowledge written in Amharic. Outside of Ethiopia Amharic is useless so it is waste of time, money and energy to learn Amharic. For example for the children of Tigrai learning Amharic is a burden because it adds unnecessary school load with minuscule benefits in return.

Individual Tigraians should reject speaking or writing Amharic for any reason unless it is required by law which is only related to dealing with federal government or in of its branches. If Amharic is going to be used as a weapon to attack Tigraians and their history, culture, language. Heritage and eventually their identity, they should treat as such and take action.