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A World Bank Study
the regular educational system, forming a parallel track. Access to formal TVET is offered after completion of grade 10. Students who plan to pursue higher education are required to sit for the Ethiopian Higher Education Entrance Certificate Examination at the end of the preparatory level. Those who enroll in TVET after completing grade 10 have, at present, three options to choose from, depending on their performance at the general secondary level: (1) one-year training (10+1); (2) two-year training (10+2); or (3) three-year training (10+3) (MOE 2010a).3 Students who complete three years of training after grade 10 are considered to have completed the first year of college-level education and are eligible to join higher learning institutions to complete an undergraduate degree.
Implementing the 1994 Education and Training Policy Within the framework of the Education and Training Policy, the government established the Education Sector Development Program (ESDP) in 1996/97, a long-range rolling plan focused on the comprehensive development of the education sector over a 20-year period. The ESDP translates the policy statement into action by providing a sectorwide implementation framework. To date the program has had four phases. ESDP I covered the first five years, 1997/98–2001/02. ESDP II and ESDP III covered the respective periods of 2002/03–2004/05 and 2005/06–2009/10. ESDP IV began in 2010/11 (see Ethiopia, 1998, 2002, 2005a, 2010b) and extends through 2014/15. These programs have been remarkably successful in expanding access and moving primary education towards the goal of universal primary education by 2014/15, in accordance with the government’s commitment to meet the Education for All targets and Millennium Development Goals. Much of this progress has been realized in the context of recurring regional conflicts, fragile natural resources, and a high level of HIV/AIDS prevalence. The ESDP I target of raising primary enrollment from 3.7 million in 1996/97 to 7 million in 2001/02 was surpassed: enrollment reached 8.1 million, representing an average enrollment growth rate of 12.8 percent. ESDP II and III continued this trend, with annual average enrollment growth rates of 11.7 percent. Subsequently primary enrollment reached 13.5 million in 2005/06 and 15.8 million 2009/10 (figure 2.1). Thus over the period 1995/96–1999/2000, the GER for primary education increased from 34.0 percent to 53.9 percent (World Bank 2005), and the net enrollment rate (NER), from 19.0 percent (Dufera 2011) to 40 percent (UIS). Secondary school enrollment as a whole (grades 9–12) also expanded rapidly after 1994, growing roughly fivefold: from 371,000 in 1994/95 to 1.7 million in 2009/10 (figure 2.1). The GER for general secondary education (grades 9–10), rose from only 12 percent in 1998/99 to 38 percent in 2010/11; for secondary preparatory education (grades 11–12), from 3 percent in 2002/03 to 8 percent in 2010/11; and for secondary education (grades 9–12), from