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ERITREA

BASIC DATA
Official Country Name:	Eritrea
Region:	Africa
Population:	4,135,933
Language(s):	Afar, Amharic, Arabic, Tigre, Kunama, Tigrinya
Literacy Rate:	25%

Number of Primary Schools:	549
Compulsory Schooling:	7 years
Public Expenditure on Education:	1.8%
Foreign Students in National Universities:	117
Educational Enrollment:	Primary: 240,737
	Secondary: 89,087
	Higher: 3,096
Educational Enrollment Rate:	Primary: 53%
	Secondary: 20%
	Higher: 1%
Teachers:	Primary: 5,476
	Secondary: 2,071
	Higher: 198
Student-Teacher Ratio:	Primary: 44:1
	Secondary: 45:1
Female Enrollment Rate:	Primary: 48%
	Secondary: 17%
	Higher: 0.3%

HISTORY & BACKGROUND

Eritrea, Africa's newest nation, celebrated its tenth year of independence in 2001. In May 1991, Eritrean liberation fighters swept the besieged remnants of Ethiopia's occupying army out of Asmara, the Eritrean capital, ending four decades of Ethiopian control and Africa's longest continuous modern war. In April 1993, Eritreans overwhelmingly endorsed independence in a UN-monitored referendum. On May 24, 1993, Eritrea declared itself an independent nation and four days later joined the United Nations.

The armed struggle for Eritrea's independence began in 1962, after a decade of Ethiopian violations of a UN-imposed Ethiopia-Eritrea federation, and following Ethiopia's annexation of Eritrea as its fourteenth province. In the early 1970s, the Eritrean People's Liberation Front (EPLF), was organized and, throughout the next decade, emerged as the dominant liberation force. The Eritrean independence struggle became synonymous with "selfreliance"—a 30-year war fought from wholly within the country by a politically mobilized population supporting a large, well-trained army using captured weapons. The historical and political necessity of Eritrean self-reliance forced Eritreans to plan and test—while fighting for—the kind of society they wanted, with education a vital factor in the liberation movement's success and a key element in the Eritrean model of development.

Country & People: Eritrea is a torch-shaped wedge of land, about the size of Britain, along the Red Sea coast in northeast Africa. Sudan is to the north and west, Djibouti to the southeast, and the Ethiopian province of Tigray to the south. As a former province of Ethiopia, Eritrea formed that country's entire, 750-mile Red Sea coast. A highland plateau divides the northern half of the country, with lowlands to the west and east. The south is desert. Asmara and major towns are sited in the highlands. Massawa and Assab are significant Red Sea ports.

About 20 percent of Eritreans are urbanized, forming a significant working class. Of the rural population, more than 60 percent are farmers; the rest combine farming and herding, except for the less than 5 percent who lead purely nomadic lives in the far northern mountains and southern coastal desert. Eritreans comprise nine ethnolinguistic groups. The total population of about 3.5 million is approximately equally divided between Muslims and Christians, the religious division cutting across some ethnic lines. The predominant language is Tigrinya, spoken by the group of that name. Arabic is widely spoken among Muslims. English—the language of instruction in post-elementary schools—is increasingly common, especially in the cities.

Early History: Archeological sites in Eritrea have yielded hominid fossils judged to be two million years old. Tools from about 8000 B.C., unearthed in western Eritrea, provide the earliest concrete evidence of human settlement. Rock paintings found throughout the country, dating to at least 2000 B.C., have been assigned to a nomadic cattle-raising people. Between 1000 and 400 B.C., the Sabeans, a Semitic group, crossed the Red Sea into Eritrea and intermingled with the Pygmy, Nilotic, and Kushitic inhabitants known to have earlier migrated from Central Africa and the middle Nile. In the sixth century B.C., Arabs occupied the Eritrean coast, establishing trade with India and Persia, as well as with the pharaonic Egyptians. The ports of Eritrea enjoyed continuous contact with Red Sea traffic and Middle East cultures that fostered a cosmopolitanism unique to the coast.

The powerful Axumite kingdom, centered in the present-day Ethiopian province of Tigray, prospered on trade through Eritrea from the first to sixth century A.D., adopting Christianity in the fourth century, then declined as Beja tribes migrated from Sudan and Arabs gained dominance of the Red Sea. The Ottoman Turks ruled Massawa and its coastal plains from 1517 to 1848, when they were displaced by Egypt. With the opening of the Suez canal in 1869, the Red Sea coast gained strategic and commercial importance. In that year the Italian government purchased the port of Assab from the local sultan. The Italians occupied Massawa in 1885. In 1889 the Ethiopian King Menelik ceded Eritrea to the Italians in exchange for military support against his Tigrayan rivals.

Prior to Italian domination, education fell into two broad categories, religious and local. Christian and Muslim clerical hierarchies replenished themselves by educating—essentially raising—small numbers of children in the tenets of the faith. Local education, as in any society, consisted of training children in practical, productive skills: home construction, traditional medicine, music-making, storytelling, and decorative arts. These practices persist in all of Eritrea's cultures and can be detected in general in the force of authority, especially generational authority, and the educative functioning of exemplary behavior, demonstration, and imitation.

Italian Eritrea: Despite Menelik's treaty with Italy, Italian legions invaded Tigray in 1895. The Italian generals, however, blundered fatally at Adwa on March 1, 1896, losing nearly half of their forces. In the ensuing Treaty of Addis Ababa, Italy renounced claims to Ethiopia, while Menelik affirmed Italian control of Eritrea.

The Italians ruled Eritrea until their defeat in Africa by the British in 1941. Education in Italian Eritrea prior to fascism was in the hands of Protestant and Roman Catholic missionaries. Swedish missionaries had established the first school, in Massawa, in the 1860s, and by the 1920s had schools in eight centers, serving 1,100 students. An early center of Roman Catholic missionary education was the highland city of Keren, where a seminary, day school, and orphanage served a few hundred children. In 1909, the first colonial educational policy was declared, based on separate schools for Italians and Eritreans. Schooling was compulsory for Italians to age 16; the curriculum of Italy was used. Education for Eritreans, however, limited to the Italian language and basic skills, was designed to produce menials for the Italians.

After Mussolini's rise to power, strict racial laws enforced segregation and wage differentials based on color. Benefiting from low wages and extensive use of child labor, the Italians built diverse manufacturing concerns, increasing the drift to the towns; by the end of Italian colonial rule, about 20 percent of the population was living in urban centers, where they were restricted by law to native quarters. In 1932, the first central office for primary education was established, the purpose of which as defined by its director, Andrea Festa, was to ensure that education accorded with the principles of the Italian regime. In 1938 Festa wrote to headmasters: "The Eritrean student should be able to speak our language moderately well; he should know the four arithmetical operations within normal limits...and of history he should know only the names of those who have made Italy great." But education was never widely available to Eritreans, and fourth grade was the highest level an Eritrean was allowed to reach. There were only 20 schools for Eritreans in 1938-39, with 4,177 students.

British Administration: Italian colonialism was an early casualty of World War II. British forces entered Eritrea in January 1941. British administration continued to 1952. The British gradually removed the color bar, began an "Eritreanization" of lower administrative positions, and allowed the formation of political parties and trade unions. At the beginning of British rule, there were no Eritrean teachers but, in 1942, nineteen were recruited. Over the next ten years, the British increased the number of elementary schools to 100 and opened 14 middle and 2 secondary schools. The curriculum introduced in 1943 covered agriculture, woodworking, clay-modeling, carpet-making, shoe-making, reading, writing, and hygiene for boys, and reading, writing, hygiene, weaving, sewing, basket work, and domestic science for girls. Textbooks in Tigrinya were locally printed, books in Arabic and English were provided, and entrance to the middle schools required students to be able to read and write English. In 1946 a teacher training college was established; by 1950, fifty-three men and seven women were in training to be teachers.

Through school committees organized in the villages, Eritreans actively supported education, funding school construction, and paying teachers. But the demand for education far exceeded budgeted funds, a 1950 British government report admitted, leaving many children unserved because of a lack of buildings, equipment, and staff.

Federation & Annexation: In 1952, after lengthy debate, and with Cold War politics a factor, the UN General Assembly voted to federate Eritrea with Ethiopia. Eritrea was to be an autonomous unit under the sovereignty of Ethiopia's monarch, Haile Selassie. The contradictions of federation were immediately apparent. Ethiopia's feudal economy and imperial political system clashed with the capitalist development of Eritrea and the democratic constitution approved by the elected Eritrean Assembly in 1952. Eritrean political parties and trade unions were banned, newspapers censored, and protests attacked by police. Finally, in November 1962, Selassie terminated Eritrea's federal status, making Eritrea a province of Ethiopia.

Eritrea had passed from British control to the federal arrangement with better educational facilities than Ethiopia, but Ethiopia's imperial government soon began to undermine Eritrean education, along with other institutions. In 1956, Eritrean languages were banned and replaced by Amharic, an Ethiopian language virtually unknown in Eritrea. Ethiopian teachers brought in to teach Amharic were paid 30 percent more than their Eritrean counterparts. The first of many student strikes occurred in 1957 at the Haile Selassie Secondary School in Asmara, the first school at which Amharic was made compulsory; in response, 300 students were jailed for a month.

Following annexation in 1962, all education decisions were made in Addis Ababa. The policies of "Ethiopianization" and "Amharization" intensified and became factors that awakened Eritreans' national consciousness and united diverse ethnic groups against the imperial regime.

In 1962 the Santa Familia University, founded in Asmara by the Comboni Sisters in 1958, obtained recognition from the Ethiopian government, changing its name to the University of Asmara. But Eritrean students resented entrance policies they viewed as favoring Ethiopians.

The Independence War: In 1963, elementary and secondary teachers went on strike, ostensibly over the pay differential between Eritrean and Ethiopian teachers. Underlying the strike, however, were sympathies for the Eritrean Liberation Front (ELF), which had begun a guerrilla war for independence a year before. Teachers were active in clandestine nationalist organizations, and many were arrested, jailed without trial, or transferred to Ethiopia. Starting in 1967 when large-scale military confrontations broke out between the Ethiopian army and ELF, young nationalists began joining the guerrillas outright. In 1970, members of ELF had a falling out, some of the dissidents eventually forming the Eritrean People's Liberation Front (EPLF). The ELF was organized along religious and regional lines; the EPLF called for nonsectarian unity and social revolution, a stance that attracted even more students and intellectuals.

The Dergue: Ethiopia's monarchy was replaced by a military dictatorship, called the Dergue (committee) in 1974. Under Haile Mengistu Mariam, the Dergue pressed for a military victory over the Eritrean independence movement. Ethiopian forces steadily lost ground. By 1977 the EPLF was poised to drive the Ethiopians out of Eritrea. That year, however, a massive airlift of Soviet arms to Ethiopia enabled the Ethiopian Army to regain the initiative and forced the EPLF, largely intact, to retreat to the mountainous north of the country.

Educated Eritreans were a particular target of Dergue harassment and violence. Thousands were detained and many killed. Amharic remained compulsory, and the number of Ethiopian teachers increased—up to 2,000 by 1980. The Dergue had declared Ethiopia a Marxist state, and all teachers were required to attend weekly classes in Marxism-Leninism, where their allegiance to the official doctrine was scrutinized. Eritrean teachers were further demoralized by the lack of professional development afforded them. In this climate, school officials feared widespread desertion of students to the guerrillas, and teachers were susceptible to accusations of political deviance; both factors led to a precipitous drop in educational quality and standards. In 1990 the Dergue disbanded the University of Asmara, taking its staff and movable property to Ethiopia.

The EPLF: Between 1978 and 1986, the Dergue launched eight major offensives against the EPLF; all failed. In 1988, the EPLF captured Afabet, headquarters of the Ethiopian Army in northeastern Eritrea. At the end of the 1980s, the Soviet Union withdrew support, the Ethiopian Army's morale plummeted, and the EPLF began to advance on remaining Ethiopian positions. Meanwhile, other dissident movements were making headway throughout Ethiopia. In May 1991, the EPLF entered Asmara without firing a shot. Simultaneously, Mengistu fled before the advance of the Tigrayan People's Liberation Front, which formed a new government in Ethiopia.

During the war the EPLF established healthcare and education programs and facilities in the regions under its control. Education was seen by EPLF leaders as integral to the national liberation struggle. An early EPLF slogan was "Illiteracy is our main enemy." EPLF-sponsored education was marked by the integration of theory and practice. In the 1970s, efforts focused on the combatants themselves with all new recruits—men and women (women made up a third of the fighters) with less than seven years of schooling required to complete their education in the EPLF, attending classes for up to six hours a day. Many rural villagers and farmers encountered education for the first time in the front.

In the mid-1970s liberated areas began to expand. In essaying the beginnings of a national school system, the EPLF began the Zero School, a boarding school for orphans, refugees, children of fighters, and those who had run away to join the front but were too young to fight. The Zero School, started with about 150 students and a handful of teachers, was designed as a teaching laboratory and workshop for the expanding education system. The Zero School eventually offered five years of elementary education and two years of middle school, adding grades as students continued. By 1983, the school had more than 3,000 students.

In addition to the Zero School, the EPLF maintained regular schools in liberated, predominantly rural areas. At many sites, students sat on stones in the shade of trees. Schools had to be camouflaged against air attack, and students had to be prepared to take cover.

In 1983 a national adult literacy campaign was begun with the dispatch of 451 teenage Zero School students to serve as teachers behind enemy lines. The literacy campaign reached 56,000 adults, 60 percent of them women. The campaigners taught reading, writing, numeration, hygiene, sanitation, and health, and participated in agriculture in the rural communities.

Drought and Ethiopian military offensives after 1985 disrupted the literacy campaign, and the EPLF abandoned the campaign form altogether when it began its own offensives in 1988, continuing adult education only for civilian health, agricultural, and political workers brought in groups to protected areas for one to two months at a time. By 1990, with the war intensifying to its climax, adult education was available only to combatants. Nevertheless, in the vast areas of liberated countryside, education continued. In 1990, a year before liberation, there were 165 schools administered by the EPLF, with 1,782 teachers serving about 27,000 students.

Independent Eritrea: In May 1991, the EPLF established the Provisional Government of Eritrea (PGE) to administer Eritrean affairs until a referendum on independence could be held and a permanent government established. EPLF leader Isaias Afwerki became the head of the PGE, and the EPLF Central Committee served as its legislative body. On April 23-25, 1993, Eritreans voted overwhelmingly for independence from Ethiopia in a UN-monitored referendum. The government was reorganized and after a national, freely contested election, the National Assembly, which chose Afwerki as President of the State of Eritrea, was expanded to include both EPLF and non-EPLF members. Expressing the government's commitment to working towards gender equality, 30 percent of the Assembly seats were reserved for women, while the remaining seats were open to men and women. The EPLF established itself as a political party, the People's Front for Democracy and Justice (PFDJ) in February 1994. A new constitution establishing a tripartite government and guaranteeing human and civil rights for all Eritreans was ratified in 1997 but was not implemented, as pending parliamentary elections were postponed indefinitely following the start of a border conflict with Ethiopia in May 1998. The National Assembly—with 150 seats, half elected by the people, half installed by the PFDJ—continued to govern the country, and Afwerki remained president, but new elections were scheduled for the end of 2001.

After the long independence war, Eritrea faced an enormous task of reconstruction. The economy and infrastructure had collapsed, and social services had disintegrated, the result of war damage, population displacement, and prolonged, severe neglect. Education was seen as a key to overall development of the country, and an immediate priority: Five months after the May 1991 victory, the EPLF reopened schools country-wide. A 1994 policy document outlined these educational objectives:

• to produce a population equipped with the necessary skills, knowledge, and culture for a self-reliant and modern economy
• to develop self-consciousness and self-motivation in the population
• to fight poverty, disease, and all the attendant causes of backwardness and ignorance
• to make basic education available to all.

In meeting these goals, the government from 1991 to 2000 constructed 365 new schools, mostly in the severely disadvantaged lowland areas. An additional 323 existing schools were rehabilitated, in many cases old schools made of twigs and sacks being replaced by entirely new buildings. From 1991 to 2000, total school enrollment (government and non-government elementary, middle, and secondary schools) increased by 255 percent, from 168,783 pupils to 429,884 pupils. The number of teachers also increased, from 5,188 in 1991 to 8,588 in 2000. A sharp increase in the number of qualified elementary teachers, from 42.7 to 72.4 percent from 1992 to 1996, was the result of three consecutive summers of inservice training at the Asmara Teachers Training Institute.

In the ten years after independence, the existing curriculum was extensively reviewed, and weaknesses were identified. English curriculum, grades 2-10, was completely revised and new textbooks were created, but few other reforms had been implemented by 2001. Additionally during this period, a score of research projects looked into such areas as girls' participation at the elementary level, education of nomads, the structure of technical and vocational education, community response to mother-tongue teaching, and preschool education needs. Beginning in 1994, secondary school students were sent during summer vacation to various regions to engage in development work: environmental protection, road construction and maintenance, production and repair of school furniture, laying power lines, and improving community sanitation. Each summer, approximately 30,000 students (38 percent of them female) participated. The program's goals include strengthening students' cultural experience, work ethic, and ecological awareness.

In 1999 a border dispute with Ethiopia devolved into large-scale war. During the fighting, as many as a million Eritreans were internally displaced and 67,000 were expelled from Ethiopia, most arriving destitute in Eritrea, severely straining the nation's social services. Among those still displaced at the end of fighting in mid-2000 were 139,000 school-age children. The government responded with makeshift schools, enlarged class sizes, and emergency shipments of school supplies to the affected areas.

CONSTITUTIONAL & LEGAL FOUNDATIONS

A new constitution guaranteeing the right to education to all citizens was ratified in 1997 but was not implemented following the start of the border war with Ethiopia in 1998. Education is administered in the Ministry of Education, one of 17 ministries with cabinet status in the executive branch of the government, under President Isaias Afwerki. The government of Eritrea views education as a key factor in political transformation, economic growth, social justice, and the alleviation of poverty, and education for all Eritreans is the government's goal.

EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM—OVERVIEW

The government offers education at elementary (for five years), middle (two years), and secondary (four years) levels, and provides one special school for blind and two schools for deaf students. The University of Asmara, offering 17 bachelor degree programs, enrolled about 4,000 students in 1999. Nongovernmental Coptic, Catholic, Protestant, and Islamic schools (a total of 110) are found throughout the country. So-called public schools (a total of ten) are administered by municipalities or village committees. Five schools are administered by foreign communities in Asmara for their children.

The government also offers technical and vocational programs for middle and secondary graduates, as well as literacy, continuing education, and skill development training programs for adults. Additionally, the Ministry of Education is responsible for school sports programs at national and international levels.

In government schools, enrollment grew an average of 7.4 percent (6.1 percent primary, 14.9 middle, 7.0 secondary) each year from independence to 1999. However, the number of children not enrolled, at all levels and particularly in rural regions, was still high in 2000: about 320,000 at elementary age and 172,000 at middle school age. Literacy for the country is estimated to be 30 percent—for women just 10 percent. Despite the EPLF's and the government's longstanding commitment to women's equal participation in all areas of national life, female enrollment in schools, in numbers or growth, has not kept pace with male participation.

Government policy is for the local language, or the language locally chosen, to be the language of instruction at the elementary level and in literacy programs. To implement this policy, alphabetic forms have been created for six previously nonwritten languages. As of 2000, elementary education and literacy programs were being conducted in eight of the nine Eritrean languages.

Objectives of the educational system, as outlined in the Government's 1994 Macro-Policy, are to create a united, prosperous, peaceful, and democratic nation by educating women and men to:

• have the skills and commitment to work together to reconstruct the economic, environmental, and social fabric
• love and respect their nation and all people within it, regardless of sex, ethnic group, religion, or profession; this includes producing citizens who are fully literate in their mother tongue and who know and wish to preserve the best aspects of their culture while changing the negative aspects, including working toward the achievement of gender and ethnic equality
• respect democratic institutions and to fully and effectively participate in the democratic process, including developing and defending basic human rights, and to be guided by and adhere to the highest ethical principles
• have a deep knowledge of and respect for the environment and the need for its restoration and protection
• wisely use scientific processes and developments so as to achieve self-sufficiency in food, modern services, and industries, based on the principle of environmental sustainability
• develop to the fullest their creative potential in all aspects.

These principles are largely inherited from the liberation struggle, which included tremendous efforts to consolidate national identity and unity, promote social progress, and inculcate tolerance and democratic ideals.

PREPRIMARY & PRIMARY EDUCATION

Preschool education begins at age five. Early childhood education is largely a community responsibility, with the government giving functional support by developing policies, programs, and teacher training activities. The government considers early childhood education as the first component of the basic education strategy and envisages expansion of preprimary schools but not supplanting the role and responsibility of parents and the community in early childhood upbringing and education. In addition, the overall tendency is to encourage nongovernmental organizations and nonformal activities in this field. The policy gives much attention to the need and importance of early and extensive investment in health care, cognitive development, and socialization. The number of preschools—90 in 2000, almost all in urban areas—has not significantly increased since independence, but enrollment rose by 50 percent, from 7,747 children in 1993 to 11,885 children (or about 5 percent of eligible children) in 2000. In 1996, many preschools run by the municipalities were transferred to private institutions and communities, and some were closed for lack of funds. Most surviving preschools are situated in Asmara and are controlled by religious institutions. The learning environment in most centers suffers from lack of basic resources and play materials. More than 50 percent of preschool teachers were untrained, but in 1996 a summer training program was organized; approximately 90 teachers had completed this training by 1999. In 2000 there were 223 trained and 97 untrained preschool teachers.

Elementary, or primary, education lasts five years. The official starting age is seven, but due to the previous lack of access to school, the majority of students are older.

The academic year runs from September to June and consists of approximately 200 school days divided into two semesters. Schools in lowland areas operate six days a week in order to finish before the hottest season. At the primary level, school exams are given four times per year at the end of every half semester, and reports are given at the end of each semester. Total gross primary enrollment in 2000 was 295,941 students. The gross enrollment percentage (enrolled students to eligible children in the population) went from 36.3 percent in 1992 to 57.5 percent in 2000; within this, the female student enrollment percentage increased from 33.8 to 52.4 percent. Elementary teachers numbered 6,229 in 2000.

The elementary curriculum includes reading and writing in the mother tongue, mathematics, science, art and music, and physical education. Starting at the second grade, English (plus Arabic where teachers are available) and civics and moral education are added. Geography is added during fourth grade.

SECONDARY EDUCATION

Elementary education is followed by two years of middle level (completing what is called basic formal primary education) and four years of secondary education, at the end of which students take the Eritrean Secondary Education Certificate Examination. Instruction in middle and secondary classes is in English. In middle schools, overall enrollment grew by 266 percent from 1992 to 2000, from 27,917 to 74,317 students. This represented a doubling of the ratio of enrolled students to middle-school-age children in the population, from 20.1 to 43.2 percent. Female middle students totaled 33,284 in 2000. Secondary enrollment increased from 27,627 in 1992 to 59,626, of which 37 percent were female, in 2000. The gross enrollment rate grew from 12.2 to 26.0 percent for males in this period, but from 12.1 to only 16.2 for females. In 2000 there were 1,312 middle and 1,047 secondary teachers.

The middle curriculum includes general science; mathematics; English; Arabic; geography; Eritrean, African and world history; civics and moral education; physical education; and music and art at some schools.

Secondary subjects are biology, physics, chemistry, mathematics, English, Arabic, geography, history, civics, physical education, and music and art.

Instructional Technology: In 2001 computers were available in only a few secondary schools in Asmara; these schools had piloted computer education classes for selected students. In some cases, Parent-Teacher Associations had raised money to buy computers for a school. Adding more computers, as it becomes financially feasible, is slated to take place first at the secondary level, and then expand downwards. In preparation for these developments, a computer lab was set up at the Asmara Teacher Training Institute in order to have teacher-trainees computer-literate by the time they begin or return to teaching.

HIGHER EDUCATION

Eritrea faces a serious shortage of skilled professionals in all fields. The only institute of higher education in the country, the University of Asmara, since its reopening in October 1991, has been engaged in restructuring and revitalization and is still establishing new colleges. Since 1997, there have been eight—Agriculture and Aquatic Sciences; Arts and Language Studies; Business and Economics; Education; Engineering; Health Sciences; Law; Science—that offer a total of 17 bachelor degree programs, as well as diploma and certificate programs. The College of Business and Economics offers evening programs for working adults. A degree program requires four years' attendance. All students follow a general freshman program during the first year, then enter the college of their choice. After their second year, students are obliged to serve one year of national service; this means that it will take them a minimum of five years to earn a bachelor's degree. In 2000, the university graduated 371 students with bachelor's degrees, 170 with diplomas, and 106 with certificates. Enrollment in Fall 2000 was 4,642 (about 13 percent women). Total faculty was 230. The university foresees steady growth, with enrollment reaching 6,000 students in 2005 and stabilizing at around 8,000 by 2010.

The university aspires to become a regional center of higher education, but first to primarily serve national needs, and has developed linkages both to national programs and initiatives and to international donor organizations and foreign universities. In 2001, the university was still suffering from a lack of basic equipment, computers, laboratories, library facilities, and a shortage of qualified academic staff.

ADMINISTRATION, FINANCE, & EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH

The Ministry of Education, the body responsible for administering the schools and setting and implementing the national curriculum, consists of three departments: General Education, responsible for early childhood through secondary education; Technical and Vocational Education, which includes adult literacy; and Research and Human Resource Development, whose responsibilities include teacher and staff training. At the regional level are six regional offices, which have autonomy to manage educational matters within their geographical area. Sub-regional offices are responsible for direct management of schools within each sub-region.

At the end of 1999, the Ministry of Education installed its first computer network, making information on all aspects of school administration available to all departments. The network extends to most district offices in all regions of the country, but in 2001 was still too slow in functioning to be of much use outside of the Asmara offices of the Ministry. When it is functioning efficiently, the network will aid decentralized decision-making in regions and sub-regions.

Education expenditures as a percent of the government's total expenditures grew from 4 percent in 1993 to more than 9 percent in 1997 (education accounted for an average of 38 percent of yearly social service expenditures in that period). As a percentage of GNP, education increased from 2 to 4 percent over those five years, a significant investment compared to many sub-Saharan African nations and a testament to the government's commitment to education. In 2000, salaries, nonsalary recurrent expenditures, and capital cost totaled 115 million, 38 million, and 77 million nakfa respectively; international donors provided 66 million nakfa applied to capital expenditures.

NONFORMAL EDUCATION

Through the Department of Technical and Vocational Education, the Ministry of Education runs technical and vocational programs, adult literacy programs, continuing basic education classes, and adult skills development programs.Technical and vocational education is offered at basic, intermediate, and advanced levels. Seven basic level training centers provide employment skills courses, four to nine months in length, for elementary completers. The centers graduated 296 students (78 female) in 1999 and 157 students (0 female) in 2000. At the intermediate level, three technical institutes (Asmara, Wina, and Mai Habar) provide training programs, lasting two to three years, for middle-school completers. Total enrollment of the three schools was 908 (15 percent female) in 2000. At the advanced level for secondary graduates, two schools are available: the Asmara Business and Commerce Training School, providing courses in accounting, banking and finance, secretarial science, and management; and the nongovernmental Pavoni Technical Institute, which offers machine shop training. Enrollment in the Business School was 190 (30.5 percent female) in 2000; Pavoni had 67 students, including 5 women.

A school of fine arts and a school of music were pioneered by the EPLF during the independence war. The arts school trains secondary school completers in sculpture, painting, and printmaking. In 2000, the school had 29 beginning (8 female) and 39 intermediate (12 female) students. The Asmara Music School offers one to two years of theoretical and practical training to those who complete grade eight. In 2000, the school had 22 male and 34 female students.

In 2000, a literacy program was operating in 796 centers, serving more than 49,000 adults, 94 percent of them women. Four-fifths of these adults were new students in the first year of the three-year program; the border war with Ethiopia had reduced the number of continuing students. The literacy program was conducted, and primers printed, in seven languages.

Evening classes in basic education are conducted at the elementary, middle, and secondary levels, with 4,872 adults (3,461 female) attending in 2000, the majority at the secondary level. Since independence, many adult skills development programs were begun in cooperation with NGOs, but the Ministry of Education has largely taken over responsibility for the programs. From 1993 to 1997, some 6,000 to 7,000 adults were trained in building trades, metal fabrication, agricultural technology, secretarial skills, and other job skills.

Various professional training programs are run by other ministries, most importantly the Ministry of Health (nurses, pharmacists, village health workers, and technicians), and the Ministry of Agriculture (farmers and its own staff of technicians). The Institute of Management Studies has been established to upgrade the skills of existing civil servants. Quasi-governmental organizations such as the National Union of Eritrean Woman and the National Union of Eritrean Youth and Students offer a variety of vocational and some academic courses across the nation. The National Union of Eritrean Women has been especially active in mounting women's literacy projects in small towns and rural villages.

TEACHING PROFESSION

There is one Teachers Training Institute (TTI), located in Asmara; graduates are qualified for elementary teaching. Teacher training was given a high priority following independence, with TTI graduating about 1,600 students per year (using intensive short courses) from 1992 to 1995; however, from 1996 to 1999 enrollments averaged 350 a year. In 2000, TTI had 606 trainees enrolled. In 2000, 72 percent of the nation's elementary teachers were qualified.

The Faculty of Education at the University of Asmara trains middle and secondary school teachers, offering a diploma in middle school teaching and a bachelor's degree in secondary teaching, as well as bachelor's degrees in educational administration and educational psychology. In 2001, approximately 800 students were enrolled in all programs. The teaching staff totaled 21, the largest in the university. The school has strong links to the Ministry of Education, and its programs are keyed to national needs. Students are prepared to meet the challenges of teaching in rural schools, to innovate, and to rely on local resources and materials.

In 2000, about 32.0 percent of middle teachers and 71.2 percent ofsecondary teachers were qualified. To make up for a shortage of qualified teachers, and to allow Eritrean teachers to spend time abroad pursuing advanced degrees, the Eritrean government, in a program partially financed by the World Bank, has recruited expatriate teachers, mainly from India, since 1997. In 2000, approximately 250 such teachers were bolstering the teaching staff at secondary and technical schools. At the same time, 64 Eritrean teachers were studying in postgraduate programs outside Eritrea.

SUMMARY

Eritrean education has suffered from the disregard, and even malice, of colonial occupiers and the devastation of a long independence war—and benefited from the experience of the liberation movement that developed an educational system with some modern and progressive features years before coming to power.

From the liberation movement, the national education system inherited a respect for all the languages and cultures of the country, now seen in policies that primary and literacy education be conducted in students' mother tongue; that priority for educational expansion be given to disadvantaged and marginalized areas and ethnic groups; that communities be involved in the establishment and running of schools; and that women be accorded full educational equality with men. Additionally, Eritrean education has inherited from the independence struggle a self-reliant attitude. As a nation, Eritrea has sought to keep development firmly in the hands of Eritreans and is known for refusing international aid that would compromise that ideal. Nevertheless, the Ministry of Education has maintained and sought international aid and assistance to build its capacity and improve teaching and learning.

As an independent nation since 1991, Eritrea has managed to build or rehabilitate more than 600 schools, add 3,400 teachers, and more than double enrollments—a creditable achievement for a young, poor, and warravaged country. The government has stated its intention to provide basic education for all and considers education a key to development. For a country that is one of the world's poorest, Eritrea has devoted significant financial resources to education.

Still, in 2000 more than 716,000 school-age children remained unenrolled, curriculum reform was stalled, illiteracy for the population as a whole stood at 70 percent, and the planned-for widespread adult education had barely begun. At the turn of the millennium, improving educational quality was seen as the Ministry of Education's major priority. Plans were under way to fully implement curriculum reform in the coming five years; to improve and expand teacher training, including opening a second Teacher Training Institute, enlarging the Faculty of Education at the University of Asmara, and creating more opportunities for teachers to increase their skills and pursue higher education both in and out of the country; to establish new and strengthen existing Parent-Teacher Associations; provide more vocational training options to students; to create a unit to address the needs of children with learning difficulties; to systematize preschool education; to increase adult literacy; to expand computer technology at all administrative levels and in academic programs beginning with secondary schools; to better coordinate the educational activities of various government ministries; and to correct inefficiencies within the Ministry of Education itself.

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—Leslie D. Gottesman