The Missing Path in Ethiopia’s Education Debate
A pathway that has long shaped economies and livelihoods: Technical and Vocational Education and Training, better known as TVET.
In Ethiopia, conversations about education and youth ambition tend to circle around one destination: university. Families celebrate admission letters, communities measure success by degrees, and public concern about declining interest in higher education usually refers to college enrollment alone. Lost in this conversation is another pathway that has long shaped economies and livelihoods: Technical and Vocational Education and Training, better known as TVET.
A recent study prepared through collaboration between the African Center for Economic Transformation and the Policy Studies Institute confirms that enrollment in Ethiopia’s TVET system has dropped sharply (by 50%) over the past three years. The decline coincides with policy changes that shifted recruitment from Grade 10 to Grade 12 graduates, but structural adjustments alone do not explain the trend. Social perception continues to cast vocational education as a route taken only when university doors remain closed.
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