Community Attitude towards the Implementation of A Wgni as A Medium of Instruction In the Primary Schools of Awl Administrative Zone
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Date
2004-05
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
The purpose of th is study was to investigate the attitude of the community (stakeholders) towards
the implementation of A wgni for educational instruction in the primary schoo ls (1-8) of Awi. To
this effect, the study has examined the causes and consequences of the attitudes of the community
towards the implementation of the program since its introduction in the 1996/97 academic year.
The subjects involved in the study were 328 in number selected by usi ng different appropriate
sampling methods fmm the parents, pupils, teachers and principals of Amharic and Awgni medium
schools as well as the heads and the eXP1rts of the education offices and the administrative bOdies
of both woreda and zonal level.
Since factual infol"lnation and opinions are desired to conducr the study both a
questionnaire and an opinion na ire are implemented for data gathering. Then the data gathered were
analyzed and in terpreted by being categorized into three major groups: variables related to
awareness; variables related to attitude; and variab les related to the practices and suppl ies rendered
to run the program . The relations and in erdependences of these variables were also examined by
using differenr sta tistical methods that included the percentage, the standard deviati on, the t-test,
the chi-square, and Pearson's pmduct -lTloment correlation.
Finally, the results indicated that while the respondents of an overwhelming number of the
adminisn'ative bodies and 52% of the heads and the experrs of the education offices favored the
NETP perraining to its language policy 3 1.8% of the latter respondent categories and an
overwhelming proportion of the reacher respondents di sfavored it. The rational es jusrified by both
of those responden ts who di sfavor rhe NETP showed that there is a lack of awareness to the NETP
and to the benefits of using an MT for educationa l instruction . This was in turn because,
parti cularly, teachers were not well acquai nted with it by either an in servicc or on the job
trainings.
Moreover, except the rc spondcnts of thc administr~tive bodies (none of whom have
childrcn learning in the Awgni medium in practice) the atritudes of the majority of thc rcst of the
respondcnt categorics arc negati vc towards thc introduction of A wgni for educational in struction.
This was also duc to the fact that its implcmcntation was not only not on the basis of the
consultation and conscnt of thc beneficiary community but also not based on thc supply of theIll'l'cssary rcquircmcnls of rcsources and suppli cs. Thcrefore, in addition to lack of thc support of
th l' bcneficiary community, the program is also sui'li:ring from lack of the nccessary human (both
tcachcrs and cxperti se) and material (textbooks and supplementary readers) resources, particularly
in the case of thc upper primary (grades 5 and 6).
In genera l, frolll all this it can be concluded that the implementation of Awgni as an LO! is
basically entangled with attitud inal probleills aillong the community that stemilled from awareness
shortages and the consequent problems of resource suppli es. Accord ingly, since a program
di sf<II'o red by the majority of the stakeholders has an opportunity that hardly meets its goa ls, no
Illatter its basis on sound rationales, it may require the executors to create comll1unity awareness
I and consequent attitudinal chan ges. This in turn s 1all be ach ieved through an educative, open -
Ill in d~ d , and flex ible approaches that took comillunity attitud es, recoillmendations and rationales in
to accou nt than those of coerci ve strategies.
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Keywords
A wgni for educational instruction