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Abdulaziz Dino Gidreta
tions is positioned in few kilometers range and the main electric line passes over these
neighborhoods in its ways to Addis Ababa.
Typical to almost all surrounding districts, these neighborhoods are characterized by pro-
duction of cereals, Enset (commonly referred to as false banana) and cash crops such as
coffee and Çhat. Çhat, also called as Khat at the overseas, is a common plant native to
HOA and the Arabian Peninsula. It contains the alkaloid cathinone (an amphetamine-like
stimulant) which is said to cause excitement, loss of appetite, and euphoria (Gashaw,
2014). Chat is known to be one of the sources of income for lots of households in the
district. In the neighborhoods, the average monthly individual and household incomes are
estimated to be about 38.99 birr per person/per month and 194.95 birr per household/per
month respectively (Menu & Ahmed, 2006).
Indeed, the urban Gurage community has been known for its wide-ranging contribution
to the rural development, the most famous case being the tremendous contribution of the
GRCO. Nishi (2008:14) explores, over the last four decades, GRCO helped to construct
more than 450 kilometers of all whether gravel roads, in addition to dozens of elemen-
tary and secondary schools. Congruently, there have been continuous assistance from
members of the Gurage community living in cities, mostly in Addis Ababa. However, con-
tributions from the urban Gurage community’s development assistance has never been
comparable to the rural residents’ persistent contributions in form of cash, labor and raw
materials like wood. And, the urban contributions have often been complained for lack
of good management and coordination no matter how contributions have always been
vital to the rural. No matter how the rural Ethiopia has spent tough histories in terms of
development, largely, lack of independent attention from the current government con-
tributed for the delays in the reduction of developmental complications, if not for their
extermination.
Development Challenges of the Grassroots
Schooling Anomalies
The Ethiopian government introduced a new Education and Training Policy in 1994 and
launched the Education Sector Development Program (ESDP) in 1996. Over the past 15
years of the ESDP, the number of primary schools are claimed to increase from 11,780
in 2000 to 25,217 by 2010. The primary school gross enrollment rate is also stated to
increase from 20.3% in 1993 to 51% in 2000; and jumped to 94.2% in 2010. And, the
disparity in enrollment rates between male and female gross enrollment ratio had been
narrowed from 0.75:1 in 1997 to 0.93:1 in 2010 (MoFED, PASDEP, 2006; FDRE, GTP,
2010; & EPA, 2012: 26-27). However, such common reports do not tend to include even
a minimum signal regarding the type and/or quality of school (infrastructures) and the
teaching-learning. Qualitative reflections, mostly based on interactions with communities
and school observations, might go to the extent to disprove the status of ‘a school’ for the
supposed rural primary schools accounted for the most part in the statistics.
