The Addis Ababa City Adminstration cabinet on Thursday approved a new multi-lingual education curriculum where in Affan Oromoo would be taught as a supplementary subject in all schools in Addis Ababa along with Amharic.
The curriculum states learners who use Amharic as mother tongue would learn Afaan Oromoo as a supplementary subject. Similarly, pupils who attend Afaan Oromoo classrooms in all schools across the city will be given Amharic as additional subject.
The statement issued by the city Mayor’s Office said that the curriculum was a result of a study under the supervision of Kotebe Metropolitan University and has been thoroughly discussed and debated by stakeholders including linguistic experts, teachers and parents.
Based on students’ choices, Amharic or Afaan Oromoo will be one medium of instruction for subjects to be given to pupils until grade seven when it changes to English. Arabic and French will be given optionally for 9th and 10th graders.
According to the city administration, the move aims at solving challenges that face learners who speak only Afaan Oromoo, and use Amharic as the language of learning and teaching (LoLT) in the city and to introduce Afaan Oromoo as LoLT in schools across the city.
It is not clear if the curriculm will be enforced in private schools in the city.
However, the new curriculum did not state a decision on the controversial issue of the hoisting of Oromia regional state flag and the regional anthem to be played in the schools, but it said the Afaan Oromoo curriculum which has been copied from the Oromia regional state to be taught in Afaan Oromoo classes in the city schools would be scrapped and replaced by the new curriculum.
