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Brain Drain and Its Effect on Ethiopia’s Institutions of Higher Learning, 1970s–1990s

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 May 2016

Solomon A. Getahun
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Extract

During the past three decades Ethiopia has been noted for political turmoil, drought, and famine. The country’s 63 million people, the second largest population in Africa, have a per capita income of $110, one-fourth the average for the continent. At all levels, it has the lowest school attendance rate in the world: 30 percent at primary, 13 percent at secondary, and less than 1 percent at the tertiary level. The country’s health sector, too, is in no better condition: health expenditure between 1990 and 1995 was 1.7 percent of GDP. Life expectancy at birth is 49 years. The country also has one of the highest HIV-AIDS infection rates in the world (9.3 per 100 adults).

Type
Part III: Country Studies
Information
African Issues , Volume 30 , Issue 1 , 2002 , pp. 52 - 56
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 2002 

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References

Notes

1. Institute of International Education, Open Doors, 1973 (New York, US: Institute of International Education, 1973), 14–15 Google Scholar.

2. U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, 1990 Census Population: Ancestry of the Population of the United States, prepared by the Economics and Statistics Administration (Washington, D.C.: Bureau of the Census, 75) Google Scholar; see also “Report to the Congress: FY 1996 Refugee Resettlement Program,” U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Office of Refugee Resettlement; Refugee Admission Proposal: Hearing before the Committee on the Judiciary House of Representatives, 97th Cong., 1st sess., September 29, 1981.

3. U.S. Department of Justice, Immigration and Naturalization Services, 1999 Statistical Year Book of the Immigration and Naturalization Services Refugees, Asylees, Fiscal Year 1999: 16, 19; available at http://www.ins.gov/graphics/aboutins/statistics/99YrbkREF/RA99.pdf. In the same period, 1993 to 1999, Ethiopia was the third largest refugee-sending country to the United States after Somalia and Sudan.

4. “Education Minister Genet Zawde on Ethiopian Education,” Walta Information Center [December 29, 2000]; available at http://www.waltinfo.com [hereafter WIC]; “AAU Expands Graduate, Continuing and Distance Education Programs ... Students to Resume Classes,” Addis Tribune, March 29, 2002; available at http://www.addistribune.com/Archives/2002/03/29-03-02/AAU.htm.

5. “Ethiopian Physicians Are Leaving the Country,” Reporter (Amhara), August 21, 2000.

6. “Academics in Ethiopia Are again Under Siege,” Chronicle of Higher Education (May 18, 2001): A49–50.

7. H. Tesfa, “Ongoing Discourse About Higher Education in Ethiopia: The Ministry of Education Needs to Revisit Itself,” Addis Tribune, October 6, 2000; available at http://www.addistribune.eom/Archives/2000/l 0/06-10-00/Ongo.htm.

8. U.S. Bureau of the Census, Selected Characteristics for Persons of Ethiopian Ancestry, 1990, and Educational Attainment for Selected Ancestry Groups, 1990, Bureau of the Census (Washington, D.C.: 1990)Google Scholar. Although the 2000 census data are out, detailed information by place of origin, race, citizenship, and so forth will not be available until June 2002. Thus, for the sake of convenience, I used the 1990 census data.

9. Sassen, Saskia, Globalization and Its Discontents (New York, US: The New Press, 1998), xx, xxxiiGoogle Scholar; Foner, Nancy, Rumbaut, Ruben G., and Gold, Steven J., eds., Immigration Research for a New Century: Multidisciplinary Perspective (New York, US: Russell Sage Foundation, 2000), 13 Google Scholar.

10. Celia W. Dugger, “Web Moguls’ Return Passage to India,” New York Times, February 29, 2000: 1. For the amount of remittance that Indians send home, see Ben Barber, “Indian-Americans Use Cash to Aid ‘Motherland,’” Washington Times, February 25,2000.

11. Ryan Carter, “Still Fulfilling a Doctor’s Dream: Colleagues Working to Deliver Dialysis Machines to Man’s Native Land after His Death in Sept. 11 Attacks,” Burbank, March 16, 2002; available at http://www.latimes.com/tcn/burbank/.

12. See the organization’s Web page: http://www.aheadonline.org/index.html.

13. WIC, December 29, 2000. Very recently, the Ethiopian prime minister reported to Parliament that remittance from the Ethiopian diaspora has almost equaled the country’s export earnings from coffee. Therefore, the government’s move of granting dual citizenship status to Ethiopians abroad might indicate the growing economic significance of the group. However, these dual citizens do not have the right to vote. The Ethiopian government appears to like the money from the diaspora community although it detests its political participation.