The Ethiopian federal high court fourth criminal bench yesterday passed a guilty verdict on eighteen people: four prominent leaders of the Ethiopian Muslim arbitration committee members, a journalist and thirteen others on counts including attempted terrorism, conspiracy , and incitement.
A new study shows that the number of children and adolescents who are out of school is on the rise, and grew to 124 million in 2013. Released by the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) and the Education for All Global Monitoring Report (EFA GMR), it shows that international aid to education remains below 2010 levels and is grossly insufficient to meet new education targets to achieve universal primary and secondary education.
Milkessa Midega
In March 2015 Dr. Birhanemeskel Abebe, a renowned Ethiopian academician, came up with “Top Ten Reasons why Afaan Oromo should be the federal working language”. His observation reminded me of my own M.A. thesis defended in 2003 Ethiopian Academic Year at Addis Ababa University (AAU). The title of my thesis was “Ethiopia’s Choice of Federal Working Language and Its Implications for Non-Amharic Languages: The Case of Afaan Oromoo”. The overall thesis was devoted to theoretical understanding of the general principles and international comparative experiences, and practical consequences of choosing working language/s in multilingual countries. It explored the reasons used (and should be used) for adopting working language/s. In this brief reflection, I would like to build on the ten points raised by Dr. Birhanemeskel based on the major findings of my thesis.
