Fortune News | Jul 14,2022
Betelhem Tekle sat outside the gates of Flipper International School, on Sierra Leone St., behind Lancia, watching her four, six, and eight-year-old children stream out at dismissal and wondering whether she would soon have to move them.
Her anxiety is part of a wider dispute over “Curricula Plus,” a demand the Ministry of Education has imposed to reshape how international schools align with "national priorities." The plan comes alongside a regulation requiring international schools like Flipper International to maintain at least 30pc enrollment of foreign nationals to retain their designation. The Ministry argues that the rule and the curriculum reform are needed to protect "national values" and legal standards.
“Since this was confirmed, I’ve started looking into other schools as a precaution,” she told Fortune. “But most institutions that offer a similar standard require a foreign nationality for registration.”
Although these institutions are labelled “international,” more than 83.5pc of students enrolled are Ethiopian nationals. Around 95pc of teachers and 97pc of administrative staff are also Ethiopian. The 46 schools no longer mainly serve the foreign diplomatic and expatriate communities they were initially designed for, but have become domestic schools built on foreign curricula. For the authorities, the reform follows “existing realities rather than imposing an entirely new structure.”
Under Curricula Plus, the national curriculum is positioned as the primary structure. International curricula may supplement areas where the national system lacks subject depth or scope, with the preference and consultation of parents and schools.
Parents like Betelhem worry that the reform will reduce quality rather than raise it. For her, the difference between the education systems goes beyond textbooks to language and pedagogy, and that only schools that follow international models provide what she wants for her children.
“Unfortunately, only such schools currently provide those guarantees,” Betelhem told Fortune. “With the fees being paid, the education must remain competitive.”
Another parent, Tsedeniya Amare, supports strengthening the national content but does not trust the sequencing.
“If the aim is to balance national and international curricula, then the national curriculum should first undergo reform to reach comparable standards,” she said. “Even studying the Cambridge curriculum alone is demanding. Adding unfamiliar requirements risks overwhelming students. Children may lose the balance they need to be children.”
Officials at the Education Ministry insisted the reform will maintain students’ competitiveness internationally. They insist the new curriculum is competency-based, connects academic content to practical application and 21st-century skills, and integrates indigenous knowledge, vocational training, and ethical education.
At a meeting convened with parents and parents-teachers association (PTA) members of school boards last week, the Minister, Berhanu Nega (Prof.), argued that leading universities do not award scholarships solely on the basis of the curriculum a student has followed.
“Admissions decisions are shaped more by a student’s individuality, intellectual depth, and ability to articulate a distinct identity,” he said. “A strong grounding in one’s national identity doesn't limit global opportunity. Rather, it provides the foundation from which a unique perspective can emerge.”
That meeting, held on March 4, 2026, at the Ministry of Education in Arat Kilo, was intended to ease fears about the new national curriculum and the parallel rules for international schools. Parents questioned the Ministry's legal authority to impose such sweeping changes and asked whether implementation could be suspended until agreement was reached. Instead, the meeting confirmed that the reform Berhanu and his senior officials push is not up for reversal. According to the Minister, designing and enforcing curricula falls squarely within the Ministry’s mandate.
“Go for it,” Berhanu said bluntly when parents threatened lawsuits.
The Ministry's case rests on culture and identity, where its officials fear some practices within international schools risk undermining "national and cultural identity, creating legal and regulatory complications, and contributing to broader developmental and economic problems." In their view, importing curricula from providers such as Cambridge or Princeton without sufficient local integration produced graduates who may be academically strong but culturally detached.
Students, they argue, can readily cite foreign writers, musicians, and historical figures yet struggle to name national authors or explain basic elements of their own heritage.
Parents reject suggestions that their children are becoming “whitewashed” or that identity is slipping away simply because they study in English or follow a foreign curriculum. They are also worried about their "rights" to put their children where they see fit. For many of them, opportunity and global competitiveness, rather than resistance to teaching Ethiopian history, geography, cultures, and languages, remain major concerns.
“When it comes to their children, parents know their child better than the government or any other higher authority,” said an academician who requested to remain anonymous.
Education experts, such as Mekbib Tassew, who has conducted several studies on educational quality, have raised additional concerns. He wondered how the 30pc threshold was chosen and whether there was any data to support it.
“Are we implying that nationals can't access quality education without foreign involvement?” he asked.
Mekbib sees the reform as an attempt to assert greater regulatory control over a lucrative sector. International schools generate substantial revenue, including foreign currency inflows.
With their leafy compounds, foreign curricula, embassy families, and polished websites, their annual tuition bills can climb above two million Birr. It is a small and rarefied corner of the education market, serving expatriates, diplomats and a sliver of the urban elite. Yet the new regulatory test threatens to expose how narrow this world really is. International schools are not a parallel education system but an enclave. Their fee structures place them far above ordinary private schools and they are concentrated in Addis Abeba.
And their legal status is now entering a period of flux, as regulators test whether “international” is a matter of substance or branding.
However, in a general-education system serving roughly 19.5 million students, these schools' share of national enrollment remains well below one-tenth of one percent. Yet such schools occupy an outsized place in Addis Abeba’s social and economic circles, offering International Baccalaureate, British, American, French, and German curricula at fee-based levels.
Three schools stand out as the most prominent. The International Community School (ICS), with American and IB offerings; Sandford International School, with a blend of IB and British curricula; and Lycée Guebre-Mariam, anchoring the francophone and diplomatic niche. Alongside them are the German Embassy School, Bingham Academy, British International School Ethiopia, Cambridge Academy Ethiopia, Flipper International School and One Planet International School.
At the top end, the International Community School (ICS) charges more than two million Birr a year in upper grades, while other international schools charge between 226,000 and 540,000 Br, compared with 20,000 to 80,000 Br at many mainstream private schools and negligible tuition in public schools. The resulting gap in fees, several times more than ordinary private schools at the lower end, and 15 to 60 times more at the very top, turns the subsector into a social sorting mechanism as much as an educational choice.
International schools collectively generate annual tuition revenues exceeding 10 billion Br, modest against total national education finance, but considerable in an urban market serving a narrow and affluent clientele. The admissions process, from interviews and language assessments to academic testing in maths and reasoning, alongside priority rules for siblings, returning families, and embassy-linked households, reinforces the enclave character of their model. They are a filtered gateway to an educational identity tied to international mobility and globally recognised credentials.
It is because the “international” label carries commercial and status value that the new accreditation rule is believed to mark a crucial policy shift, stripping some high-end private schools of a brand that has conferred both prestige and pricing power, forcing them to reconsider whom they recruit, what they call themselves and how they position their curricula.
"Is an international school defined by curriculum and marketing, or by the composition of its student body?" Mekbib wondered. “Whether there are five foreign students or 100 should not alter the academic provision itself. The system should consider adopting stronger elements of international curricula rather than forcing the reverse."
According to Mekbib, such schools also contribute to intercultural exposure, networking opportunities, and broader skill development beyond academic delivery. He warned that if standards decline, families who can afford it will leave.
“That means lost revenue and lost talent,” said Mekibib.
Another expert, Tesfaye Lega Woldetsadik, an educator and author of four books, including one about the problems of modern Ethiopian education, offered a more nuanced view. He conceded that curriculum mediation is needed to protect "national identity, culture, and language," but should not rely on rigid enrollment thresholds unless the underlying objective is to phase out international institutions altogether.
"International curricula don't inherently guarantee stronger subject content beyond language advantages,” he said.
He believes structural inconsistencies between systems complicate oversight and require harmonisation within a stable regulatory framework.
The risks he sees are rooted in history. He attributed the research findings to show how imported models have shaped local schooling.
“An Ethiopian child today learns in a system of largely foreign origin that uses foreign textbooks written in a foreign language and that employs a large number of foreign teachers, or local teachers trained by foreign nationals," he told Fortune.
He was bemused little that the educational experience often becomes a remote, highly theoretical one of very limited relevance to the student's life outside of school.
"An educational system that merely provides knowledge and skill without essential blended values." Tesfaye said, "is in danger of producing soulless and rootless youth whose values are indispensable ingredients of ‘the good life’ in any society”.
An earlier law already places private, international, faith, and community schools under the Ministry’s authority. While international schools may maintain their curricula, they are required to meet national values and legal standards. According to the Education Ministry, only six out of the country’s 46 schools designated "international" are considered to meet prescribed international standards. The Ministry says the majority of children from foreign national and diplomatic communities are enrolled in specific institutions. With about 21,000 students across the schools, the stakes are high for families and operators alike.
Some schools say they are already in compliance with the new quota and see little reason to worry. According to a parent whose child is enrolled at Cambridge International, the School, currently on a term break, had sent a letter stating that the new regulation does not threaten its status, as it already meets the threshold.
“It's scheduled a parent forum meeting after reopening to discuss the matter further and address any remaining concerns,” she told Fortune.
Others, including Flipper International School, confirmed they have taken part in meetings convened by the Ministry and the Education & Training Authority (ETA) to discuss implementation and possible adjustments. According to Flipper 's administrators, they will implement government requirements while aligning them with the School's operational framework, and will state that academic standards remain their priority.
Schools that meet the threshold are preparing for possible student transfers from schools that may not comply. Some parents, unsettled by uncertainty, are exploring schools abroad or considering a relocation to maintain continuity with internationally aligned curricula. They fear that shifting to the national curriculum could water down the global standards they seek. PTA members reported that schools not subject to the new regulation have started positioning themselves as alternatives, accepting transfer inquiries and discreetly advertising tuition discounts for foreign passport holders. They worry that their children will be pushed toward a nationally aligned curriculum by default, simply because they lack a foreign nationality. The perception of a two-track system, one accessible through foreign status and another tied to national compliance, has left some feeling cornered.
Implementation details have deepened that anxiety. Parents like Betelhem Murad, whose two younger sisters attend an international school, describe the sudden requirement for students to sit for the national Grade 8 examination, previously optional for many, as particularly disruptive. She fears mock exams show gaps between prior instruction and the new assessment expectations.
“Students are being rushed,” she said.
Schools have stretched study hours, added tutoring, and hired external instructors to bridge curriculum differences. Critics argue that where national curricula emphasise examination structure and content coverage, international programs prioritise practical application and analytical skills. They fear that a rapid shift forces students to “unlearn” established learning methods to fit a different assessment culture.
The Ministry's officials say they are listening, even if the policy direction is fixed. At the March meeting, three themes - language of instruction, comparative evaluation, and transition - emerged for continued engagement. All sides agreed that English should remain the medium of instruction to preserve international familiarity and competitiveness. Officials and parent representatives backed a structured comparison between the national curriculum and international programs. Parents urged against abrupt implementation, and the Ministry acknowledged that a sudden change could disrupt families and said a phased approach would be necessary.
Still, Minister Berhanu was clear that the curriculum as designed is not open to renegotiation. When a parent proposed an alternative model that would keep the international program as the base and add national subjects as a supplement, he declined. He viewed last week's meeting as a practical delivery, transitional challenges, and possible improvements in execution.
“The dialogue was centred on how it'll be carried out, not whether it will proceed,” he said.
For him, every country structures its education system around a national curriculum that reflects its history, values, and long-term aspirations. According to the Minister, a curriculum is not merely a timetable of classes but a blueprint for shaping citizens who know what their country is and what it seeks to become. In matters of national interest, he insisted, economic considerations, including high tuition fees, do not override the responsibility to align education with the public good.
“No group stands above that broader national interest,” he said.
By the end of the meeting, the Minister left the venue for parents to continue talking among themselves and organise their concerns into specific proposals. What remained unresolved is whether Curricula Plus will ultimately strike the balance it promises between national grounding and global competitiveness, or whether, as many parents fear, the cost of reform will fall most heavily on families and students who have invested in paths they now see at risk.
PUBLISHED ON
Mar 07,2026 [ VOL
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1349]
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