Ethiopia and the Horn, 1930-1936

Educational progress was very slow. In 1934 alone, 4,200 Ethiopians attended state schools in Addis Abeba; only a few hundred had advanced beyond elementary grades. Some went abroad for further study, as did a few pilots and officer-cadets; most went to France and the US. There were a dozen government elementary schools in the provinces and some 2,000 pupils in mission schools. Both state and mission schools introduced European languages and a better knowledge of Geography and Mathematics. But the spread of literacy in Amharic and Arabic was mainly due to the tuition offered by monks, village priests and a few sheikhs.

THE CAMBRIDGE HISTORY OF AFRICA, Vol. 7 (1986) By J.D. FAGE et al.