nazret.com

No Surprise here...

Ethiopia has been the target of such distorted facts by some group who would have their own personal.

All sorts of doomsday have been prophesized and predicted on Ethiopia in the last few years and it all has been proven wrong.

Ethiopia has taken a giant leap of developments never seen in the history of the nation that prestige institutions like WB, IMF and world leaders like President Obama has recognized the progress...

The Ethiopian Govt and officials have been doing a very good job shrugging the cheap shuts off and not dignifying the story by not being distracted from what matters.

Ironically, Most of the times these distorted facts about Ethiopia helps Ethiopia in a way as it engages THE TRUTH to come out and reveal itself.

These charity organizations are using Ethiopian children pictures to raise funds that hardly reaches Ethiopia. They have interest in spreading exagerated ,shocking news of starvation,disease,poverty,etc.
Ethiopia is their favorite topic and begging tool.for these organizations Ethiopia is stuck in time.there are no changes,no improvements,above all,ethiopians deserve no dignity.

they claim there is no reliable statistics in Ethiopia and yet they come up with their own fictional data to back up their stories in the hope of stirring emotions or to ease DONER FATIGUE.

INDIA is the worest place even by african standard and yet we rarely hear about it.may be the indians deserve more dignity that the ethiopians.
I have seen kids scavanging in big rubbish tips in india and south america,but never ever seen anything like that in Ethiopia.

we the ethiopians thanks our pm meles zenawi we are in wright truck this is the propoganda of NGO and white man who want to begg in the name of ethiopia we allready know that wait and see after 10 years ethiopia will the compfertable and buisness center of afrika
in ethiopia now gigant transformation big growth very fast it is simplly the best the best

yoni,

. . .cant you see those school children in debra zeyt going to their school without any single notebook?. . .and going back home for a few hours in the school without proper and quality education? . . .

you are blind stupid puppet!!!

This is another crooked sales pitch by some very corrupt so-called NGOs to fatten their own pockets. Trust me, there probably done any current, on the ground study. What they probably did is just sit in their million dollar office and create a list by picking countries as they just damn wished - in any way they thought it would be most effective to bring in their dirty money.

As PM Meles have said, the AID business has become huge business making a lot of hucksters filthy rich. Most of these folks are 1000 times worse than any shady car salesman. They use old kind of unethical methods to collect money, from using fake pictures to bogus data.

Hahaha oh, man that's a wonderfull news !!

@abd @addis zemen
what' up with the news? huh go n fix your education system

The few diaspora elites who are rallying to discredit the Ethiopian government will surely love to this articles but I hope they will also read the big question mark the Economist has put! This is an eye-opening article for those people who only consume some distorted reports by some NGOs and "independent researchers" and write articles very detached from the realities in our country or make noises on the streets of Washington DC and New York. Instead, it would be healthy to use one's own intelligence and search for the truth.
Ethiopia shall prosper!!

somehow impressed by the Economist, at least trying to set the facts straight. Most international organizations have no an inclusive and deeper knowledge of anything running in these remote areas, be it politic or development. They are very much susceptible for unsubstantiated assertions. One may expect Oxfam, considering its wider involvement and presence in the area, to have a realistic observations on what is actually going on there!

Important is Ethiopia should march forward in this sector without being impressed of all this. One laptop per child, all centrally managed for them, is to me the quickest solution for many of existing difficulties. This is realistic & achievable with a little bit of dedication, no more paper, no more pencil and no more..... If this come to roll out i could imagine even the disgruntled Diaspora to shove eachother to jump on the wagon!

WILL YOU PLEASE GIVE US A BREAK WITH SUCH STATISTICS FABRICATED FOR IDIOTS? EXCUSE ME IF I, AS AN ETHIOPIAN HAD NOT EXPERIENCED WHAT YOU ARE CLAIMING.ACCORDING TO SUCH TRASH STATISTICS, ETHIOPIA IS ALSO THE POOREST AND WORST PLACE TO LIVE IN WHERE PEOPLE ARE DYING OF HUNGER EVERYDAY, EXCUSE ME AGAIN FOR NOT WITNESSING THIS "FACT". MY GOD, YOU GUYS SHOULD KNOW BETTER THAN SWALLOWING ALL WHAT THEY FEED YOU AND VOMITING IT EVERYHWERE. IF YOU YOU ARE PROUD ETHIOPIANS , YOU BETTER START QUESTIONING EVERYTHING THEY TELL YOU ABOUT ETHIOPIA, BECAUSE NONE LITERALLY NONE OF IT IS TRUE. I HOPE YOU WILL AT LAST OPEN YOUR EYES AND STOP HUMILIATING YOURSELVES AND OTHERS. YOU HAVE THE RESPONSIBILITY TO EDUCATE PEOPLE AND NOT PUBLISH EVERY TRASH YOU COME ACROSS. THANK YOU

People, it depends on the measuring yard used. Reports such as this should not offend the government or the people. Instead, it should help refine the progress achieved in the last 40 years and even earlier.

I wish the government authorities will not get offended by such revealing reports and ban the people who create the reports from doing it again. Instead, they should be confident and grown up to swallow what has been revealed and work to change it for the better.

NGO is a big business, they have well polished PR's and lobbyist, and Ethiopia has been their bread basket for many years. They know they are losing their biggest customer for good; they have to make the best out of it while they can
Poor Oxfam and co. they only have five years left in Ethiopia, After five years the will be out of Ethiopia and they have to lay off their western directors, PRs and lobbyist.

forget such groups they are working just for fund and corruption

So what to believe? At least when it comes to access to Education, the current government in Ethiopia has the facts on its side. Ethiopia has made huge progress in Education in the last 20 years, the quality may be lacking but definitely Ethiopia is not the worst place to be a school child.

Have Your Say
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WoW nazret admin, what can i say. you have balls to say what you did. keep it up!

The government is the only employer of teachers in the country. Those who do not support EPRDF, the party in power, do not have the chance to get a teaching job. Therefore competent people, who can take up other jobs, are supplanted by uneducated TPLF-EPRDF cadres with a parochial outlook. As a result we have not only a shortage of qualified teachers in Ethiopia but also the new teachers are poorly trained dilettantes whose priority is propagating ethnic politics in Ethiopia.
Educational leadership was also given to the brainwashed TPLF_EPRDF cadres removing the qualified and experienced educational leaders from their positions. Those who developed the current curriculum are the uneducated ethnic politicians who believes inculcating ethnic and tribal politics in the mind of children will bring “development” in Ethiopia. Simply put, the Meles regime is making non-Tigryan Ethiopian children guinea pigs while providing high quality education to the children in Tigray region. Ethiopians know the special school with the state of the art technology built by Al Amudin to the Tigray children while the other regions were forced to downgrade their schools. This is a calculated and strategic move by Meles regime to make the rest of Ethiopia slave to the TPLF descendents.

WHO GIVE a dum what a org. says?

We know who are behind these Stastics

You know, I was educated in Ethiopia through primary and middle school. When I went to the West to get my high school and college education, I was surprised by how much better my Ethiopian education was in math and the sciences. Don't get me wrong I am not saying that education was accessible to everyone back then but at least the ones who were fortunate enough to go to school were well served in theoretical fields. However, I found that I had no practical experience because my school didn't have the facility.

I think that the Ethiopian government has real issues when it comes to human rights, freedom of the press, power control and telecommunication but it certainly has achieved milestones in areas such as Education, transportation and agriculture.

I am sick of some western aid groups collectively disparaging Ethiopia at every level. For once, say something positive about my country - because there are many positive ares - or shut the f*%k up and don't lie!

Yoni ,why don't shut your mouth ignorant kerfafa ,banda .Where the hell in a country where the majority of the peoples live in misery ,where most of ther children do not access the proper health and education services .Worth most of them are suffering of malnutrition such Miracle happened .As you ,your thuggy bros including your paid cadre Ben came to prophetise, we invite these world leaders starting by President obama to come to Ethiopia ,and say to the poor children in the streets of Addis,to the poor civil servants who can even not have a chance to eat once ,to those suffering of the lack of clean water , those suffering in AIDS ,and the famine affected that the country has taken a giant leap of developments .

Who ever say this live and learn in the worest place on earth to be honest with you Ethiopia endeed poor nation in the heart of Africa who struggle to get out of poverty and there is promissing progress remmber Rome is not built over night.

Hi all,

I think some of us who posts sugestion or comments are in the emagineray world were theory and realty are at odd. If any person oppose any progress made in respect of the education sector since 1990 means that he/she is his missing the reality and he has to wakeup to see what is going on in Ethiopia and comment. Otherwise he/she is counted as one of the lost Ethiopian genertatons who speaks from grave at night saying there is no day light in Ethiopia, every thing is dark. We should be logical,reasonable and realistic when we critisise about something or comment, be governed by our minds than our mouths. Such type of attitude doesn't help any one than our personal ego. My comment does not mean that i support the current government but i appreciate its effort and accept the reality on the ground.

That is the fruit of their labor!

I meant to say the "DERG" and now "EPDRF".

Bamba genenen,ebritegna ena dekorowoch yewah hager sitigeza wutetu yehew neaw.

And yet they deny or are experts of denial when they know for sure their own people are bleeding to death with poverty and ignorance.

As Meles Zenawi said it we can't fight and blame about distorted assumption of outsiders about Ethiopia, while some Ethiopians themselves are at the forefront in distorting her image, the problem is not coming from the outside, but from inside, often outsiders are basing their assumptions from Ethiopian sources.

What do you think is the job of Al Marian, Ethiopian Review and the extremist Diasporas? It is distorting Ethiopian image as much as possible for political gains.

How come we excpect woyane to create conducive learning envioronment when highly engagesd itself in decimation and in deliberate killings of Non -Tigryans childrens by denying access to medical services to mothers and childrens.The motive behind is to get the population of the tigrawyans inflated so as to vote out others.So Tigrean women are adviced to have more childrens as much as they can.This fact was proved true that the Amharas pouplation reported to have reduced by 2 million while the Tigryans grew by certain number .This clearly shows how woyane plays foul for its political end.So all woyane doing is a deliberate move to consolidate its power permanently.

Extraterrestrial [Visitor]


When a fact needs to be told it needs to be told. You and I know very well that Ethiopia is not the best place to be for a school child. That’s just a glaring fact. This fact will not change whether or not Meles (and you) believe that this is a distortion. Why can’t we call it a distortion when Meles cooks the books and comes up with 11% economic growth while most of people in the country are languishing in poverty? Have you ever thought about that? I
I wish things are better in my country so that I would proudly say that my country’s economy is growing at an amazing rate, that we have best schools bla bla. Unfortunately, the reality does not allow me to do so.

P.S. I am well aware of the malicious deeds of Ethiopian Review and some others in the Diaspora.

we will research on the developed countries and their sense of family and relationships and rate them 60 out of 60 and give Ethiopia #1 someday. I have a hard time accepting any study that comes out of the developed countries.

UN REPORT JUST TWO WEEKS AGO SINGLED OUT ETHIOPIA FROM REST OF WORLD FOR 90% ELEMENTARY SCHOOL ENROLLMENT, UP FROM 20% IN 1990.

NAZRET.COM CHOOSE NOT TO REPORT THAT GOOD NEWS!

[May be you are speaking of another website. Here is one and this and this too. This website is proud of its record, most of our readers can attest to that.]

No quistion Ethiopia is progressing in fast rate let us not deny that. What ever the NGO are saying is not based on facts so please admit it. Again you can't argue with sucses.

Look at the KIDS they are sayingSAVE US SAVE US. The picture says it all. One kid was told to smile. Maybe his daddy is some TPLF. The rest look SAD. Maybe HUNGRY too.

I wonder who comes up with statistics day in day out? Is Ethiopia seriously below Somalia and say Afghanistan ? Who Gives a flying F about what this hatters say anyways.Ethiopia does not need anybody's approval.

You may criticize this government for whatever you like, but not in this issue. There could be problem in quality, yet which country does not own quality problems. I am sure that quality issues could be also addressed gradually. Leave us alone, you cannot lie. All facts are against you.

I'm just wondering that the negative comments about Ethiopia comes from Ethiopians. Yes there are some so called Ethiopian intellectuals and blind folded followers whining about everything betraying their own country along with arrogant and narrow minded Eritreans who never get rest for about 40+ years to destroy Ethiopia. I never heard of any nationals in the world betray their own country unless they are a distructive social groups like KKK in America. Ethiopia start to build things, not finished. There are up and downs when u start or introduce new things. Things will not happen over nite. Instead of crying and critisizing the government, why don't you offer our country HOW CAN WE HELP? Raise a real issues: such as:enviromental toxic which can have effects on our people because of newly introduced industries since foreign people care less. Offer the government how u can help on research and implmentation of the rules for investors. Medical Doctors, go home alleast for vacation and volenteer for a month to treat patients and teach residents and share your knowledge. Ethiopia intellectuals are the only people who don't want to go back home from Africa. There is always a lame excuss" the woyane don't let you work" Listen, I have a question for you. What makes our government be different from any other Africa governments? Is there absolute democracy? genuine democratic leader? Let me tell you, all are the same dictators including our. You know why? always politics than thinking of growth. Always kook for negative of the government. No one gives thumbs up for positive sides. Always negative. How can people be their own country enemy? I don't get it. the good news is Ethiopians start going back home. You don't have to be woyane. JUST BE ETHIOPIAN.

kul [Visitor]

The Idea of distorting facts and Images of Ethiopia is the topic supported by references; I am only suggesting the causes and sources of this dissertations. I think if you are arguing images and facts was not distorted about Ethiopia then you are arguing against the article above.

Yes, "You and I know very well that Ethiopia is not the best place to be for a school child", but we also know that Ethiopia is not the worst place to be a student.

Today I was browsing Ethiopian Ministry of Education website to learn which private college is accredited by the Ministry. In the mean time I was browsing to know more about the issue discussed above. First: it is difficult to download information from the website. It takes too much time even for smaller file sizes. Second: some important files which I tried to download are corrupted files. For example Guidelines; Education and Training Policy; Education Annual Statistics (2008-2009)and etc. Third: Information link to universities, colleges and others are displayed blank. you will find also silly spelling mistakes. like Collages instead of College, Massage instead of Message in the feed back form.

In the home page it says

"The Ministry of Education of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia has set up this website to enable all stakeholders, partners, parents, students and others to access information and to contribute to the debate about education and training in Ethiopia".

However the website is so weak to disseminate information.

MOE needs to upgrade the quality of the website including rectifying corrupted files and posting the necessary up to date information.

http://www.moe.gov.et/Default.aspx

Unfortunately, Ethiopia has been a prey of merciless bureaucratic NGOs like Save the Children for decades. These organizations are like parasites. They survive by the poverty of countries like Ethiopia. They display innocent Ethiopian children show their grim faces with hunger (as if Ethiopia is the only biblican country cursed with staravation and drought), collect tons of money for grieved and generous people from America, Canada, England etc and then send may be 1/4 of the money to Ethiopia, which doesn't even reach the poor children, mostly serves their well paid bureaucrats.

Organizations like Save the Children deep inside don't like Ethiopia's rapid growth and development, because their money will dry-up. Besides, they hated Meles and EPRDF, because at last it challenged them. They hated the new NGO legislation, because they don't want Ethiopia to run its own destiny. They want to manipulate and exploit our poverty for their own ends.

In the 1985 drought in Ethiopia (when millions of $$ flowed to Ethiopia from generous Americans, Canadians and Europeans) to save our country, Save the Children was at the front collecting all that huge sum of money. Guess what, studies showed less than 10% of the fund actually reached Ethiopia from Save the Children. The rest they said covered logistics, overhead, expansion of their offices, bonus and big salaries to their fat cats!

Now, they are crying foul on Ethiopia ranking it last, saying it is still poor etc. That is all a conspiracy!

Regardless, Ethiopia will continue to grow! Never again we will be called poor and hungry. Let them wait and see 5-10 years from now. Let them prey until that. Soon, we don't need all of them to show our children's picgture and colect money!

Our motherland, Ethiopia will grow!

Extraterrestrial [Visitor]


I am not for or against the above article. My point is very clear and simple. The situation in Ethiopia is not as dreadful as some extremists would like us to believe. Likewise, it is not as dazzling as Meles and his cronies want us to accept.

Significant numbers of my fellow Ethiopians are still suffering from hunger, disease, and bad governance. I call it distortion when Meles and his cronies say there is democracy in Ethiopia where one person is in power for 20 years and poised for 5 more years. I call it distortion when EPRDF claims to have won 99.6 % of the parliamentary “seats” and still insists that there is free and fair election in Ethiopia. I call it distortion when Meles and his cronies say that the country is enjoying 11% economic growth while significant percentage of its budget is still based on foreign aid and millions are still dependent on food aid.

So, I wonder why you failed to mention these facts when you were “suggesting the causes and sources” distorting “facts and Images of Ethiopia”. I think Meles and his cronies should also be added to your “causes and sources” list.

hi, "waloyeu" just forget them; they don't get it.they are hate groups for a reason too.so we leave them within there own system, but i know there alot more in the middle nothing but worring and cofused; those may be productive citizens later in their way.

I think people misunderstood the point between the title "worst place to be a school child" and growing number of school children in Ethiopia.It could be true the number of children who go and attend school increased in Ethiopia but the fact that these children school supply,school infrastructure & facility, health and meal supply etc. may be far behind the standard set by these charity organization.I think they categorized Ethiopian school based on those factors but not by the numbers of school goers.

kul [Visitor]

Remain with the topic, which is Ethiopia is or is not the worst place to be a student. I know this because I got most my education outside Ethiopia in the poor African countries and I am still a student in one of an African country, comparatively looking at my earlier school experience in Ethiopia and my latter ones in Africa that argument Ethiopia as the worst place doesn't click right to the truth I know. Being a student in many Africa countries is a privilege and a nightmare to the poor families.

It is only in Ethiopia where students walk out form school and break school windows as a political protest in Africa while the government tries to keep them in school. It is only in Ethiopia a student can enjoy free education from primary to a graduate student level and beyond. I never paid a penny for all my education in Ethiopia but I pay every quarter of the year to study outside Ethiopia.

With the exception of the recent free universal primary education imposed on Africa states by the UN MDG's there is absolutely nothing called free in all African countries I went and sow.

It is not good to sum up everything to refute one argument. There is time and place to air out all the other grievances you have with this government. Brother 'lehulum gezie alewe', we can't analyze everything under one topic, every topic have its own merit the good and the bad. It is also not wise to oppose everything about something, my biggest difference with diasporas is that they have a kind of summarized allegation, but there are things to oppose and not to oppose, it is neither normal or healthy or productive to oppose everything. I told you many times I have serious disagreement with this government in its abnormal sympathy to Eritrea, but that is not everything about this government. I don't have to oppose government activity in Ogden, dam building, or giving a presentation at Colombia University. I don't have to oppose everything to be an opposition.

Even my point has nothing to do with this government, access to free education and the support of family for the betterment of students life was a policy and culture promoted by governments for more than a hundred years ago. What you should notice is that you see the argument by International Rivers when Ethiopia is gearing up to build up dams; you see genocide topics flaring up all in a sudden when Ethiopia is moving to extract energy deposits in the Ogden region; you also see this argument about the worst place to be a student when Ethiopia is moving to put all students in school, this is not by accident and also this have nothing to do with the government, it is about promoting the distortion of Ethiopian image and keeping her in the dark, not the government, never think if there is a new government in Ethiopia this distortion will change..

The bottom line of my argument is Ethiopia is not the worst place to be a student and saying so is the continuation of distorting Ethiopian image and the extremist diasporas are part of the problem in which the first blame should go to.

Let us think [Visitor]

There is nothing people misunderstood "school supply,school infrastructure & facility, health and meal supply etc. may be far behind the standard set by these charity organization", but that standard measure apply to all countries and Ethiopia can't be the worst. If the measure was taken to evalute Ethtiopian condition alone yes you are right, but this is a comparision of all countries in the world.

KUL

I coundnt agree more. i dont know why we ethiopians cant have frank and open discussion. the problem is if you say any thing positive about this government you are imediately labeled as weyane, hodam etc and on the other hand you have a government that is deaf to any criticism as a result our country is sadly going backward and the few gains over the past decade are being lost. for ex. i dont know how any one can claim the election to be free and fair while one side wins all seats but one. lets admit the election was neither fair nor free, but the problem is unless the government and its supporters acknowledge that how are they going to correct it, and this goes the same for the opposition too..democracy is a process. true. so is dictatorship.

New Guy

What you are trying to do is to find out if there is life out there in the galxi x.

you are dealing with uneducated self made Govt. site full of IDIOTS with NO brain to think but knows how to BEG for food.

I would say that the research was targeted and not broad enough. My daughter went to school in Ethiopia last year and is far more advanced this year than her classmates in the States.
Not every school in Ethiopia going to be bad and not every school in the states are going to be good. Parents do your part to make school a better learning place