History education in Ethiopian secondary schools (1943–1991): Why it could not yield the desired results? A historical analysis

Abstract

History teaching in secondary school is intended to be a source of knowledge, hastening the nation-building process and enhancing the critical thinking and analytical skills of youth. It can serve as a tool for promoting peace and social cohesion within a nation. However, in Ethiopia, it has become a source of controversy, suspicion, hostility, and disharmony. This study investigates why history teaching in Ethiopia has not achieved its intended results, specifically its failure to prepare secondary school students to be critical thinkers and interpret the significance of the past. The study utilizes descriptive and historical research designs to explore this issue. Data were collected from primary and secondary sources, and the researchers employed the document analysis method to analyze them thematically and chronologically. The finding reveals that two main sets of ‘conundrums’, both external and internal, have prevented history from playing its desired role. These factors are interdependent: the internal issues stem from the external ones, and the external ones create fertile ground for the internal ones. Externally, factors such as foreign influences, foreign authors, and teachers played a role. Internally, factors like curriculum-based factors, disciplinary issues, ethnocentrism, the existence of competing narratives, and the state ideology of various regimes have impacted the direction of history teaching. Therefore, the combined influence of these internal and external dynamics has generally hindered the secondary school history teaching of the country from fulfilling its intended roles.

Keywords:

• History teaching
• Ethiopia
• secondary school
• curriculum
• challenges

REVIEWING EDITOR:

• John Chiang, State University of New York, New York, US

SUBJECTS:

• History of Education
• Secondary Education
• Curriculum Studies

1. Background of the study

Based on the existing literature, we have been assured that both domestic and expatriate academic historians do not investigate why history education in Ethiopian secondary schools does not yield the desired results in a comprehensive and independent manner (Sileshi et al., 2023). But we cannot deny the efforts of some scholars as a torchlight for the researchers about the challenges of history education, both implicitly and on a smaller scale. But their studies were limited to mentioning the practical challenges of history teaching at a particular secondary school in the country. In this regard, we can mention two important studies that were conducted for the fulfilment of Master of Arts (MA) degrees. In both research papers, many practical challenges that are associated with teaching history have been discussed very well, but the problem of their study was the inability to historicize the various practical impediments of history teaching in the secondary schools of the country from a historical point of view (Bekele, 2006; Fiseha, 1992). Although there is nothing mentioned about the challenges of history education, an in-depth scholarly study was conducted to examine the educational policies and ideologies of the various regimes that have prevailed in Ethiopia since the 1940s. The authors mentioned how education in Ethiopia was the tool of inducing the political ideologies of the respective Ethiopian governors (Negash, 2006). By contrast, Tekeste has written an important book that can clarify the implications of secondary school history teaching for the nation-building processes of Ethiopia, but the paper was limited to describing only the periods of Derg (Negash, 1990). On the contrary, few attempts were made to specify the ideological impacts of various Ethiopian rulers on history education, but the author’s analysis more or less glorifies the drawbacks of Ethiopian leaders towards history teaching without plausible evidence (Toggia, 2008). Because there are some authors who argue that since the imperial regime, Ethiopia has undergone several secondary school adjustments for better improvement of the sector in general and history in particular, despite the fact that history education could not achieve its primary motives (Bekele, 2006; Wagaw, 1990).

The definitive tenacity of this study was to investigate why history education in Ethiopian secondary schools could not achieve the desired results. To explore the inability of the discipline, we have chosen the year 1943 as a starting point because history became part of the secondary school curriculum in Ethiopia in 1943. In the same year, the challenge of history teaching was started because it was inaugurated without a structured syllabus, teaching materials, and teachers. The other multidimensional factors that bottlenecked the teaching of history came together in the meantime. For instance, foreign interferences, disciplinary issues, historian-based faults, ethnocentric views, the issue of narratives, and the willingness of the regimes to use the subject for ideological commitments were among the issues that complicated the development of the discipline (Bekele, 2006; Fiseha, 1992; Kebede, 2003).

Though secondary school in Ethiopia was not started during the occupation period, the fascist government implemented the educational policy of Italy in Ethiopia, aiming to create a generation that could admire the ancient civilization and glory of Italy (Mordochi, 1970). To sustain their political and colonial interests in Ethiopia, Italy abolished the existing history syllabus of the country that was delivered in primary schools. Instead, they proposed historical contents that could narrate how the ancient Roman civilization grew from a small town on central Italy’s Tiber River into an empire, the achievements of Roman civilization, and Italian unification and its struggles. It was at this turning point that history faced countless challenges from other external nations to impose their interests on its content, which negated Ethiopia’s national unity and independence. Then, the contents of history, syllabuses were full of the ancient glories of Europeans and Americans, which are irrelevant to Ethiopians (Fiseha, 1992; Kemisso, 2009; Pankhurst, 1972).

The imperial regime started teaching history to use as a tool to spread its ideologies rather than viewing it as a single body of knowledge to achieve its ultimate goals. This was also continued even after the eruption of the revolution because, since 1974, the socialist regime has come up with its own educational policy, which has also been influenced by Marxist-Leninist ideology. Therefore, the general aim of history education is to pave the way towards ease the construction of socialist Ethiopia, by enhancing the socialist consciousness level of Ethiopian youth (Agiro, 1990; Bekele, 2006; Kebede, 2003). The EPRDF government also drafted a new educational and training policy in 1994, which is very different from the policies of former regimes (Goshu & Woldeamanuel, 2019; Melese & Tadege, 2019). According to critics, this educational and training policy of 1994 is the mother of all problems we are facing at the moment. Because it was an educational policy that produced incompetent citizens in all professions (Jiru, 2020). Gradually, history teaching has been overburdened with foreign predicaments or interests (Bekele, 2006; Kebede, 2003). Therefore, this study seeks to analyze why the secondary school history teaching of Ethiopia could not yield the desired results in the specified period from a historiographical point of view.

1.1. Statement of the problem

The primary motive of education is to gear development and the survival of nations and the globe at large by propagating political, social, and cultural values, but the reality in Ethiopia is the opposite. Rather than gearing development and changes, education has brought crisis because the modern education system removed the native values, cultures, and knowledge of Ethiopia (Negash, 1990). Among other disciplines, history teaching plays an irreplaceable role in the world as a source of knowledge, hastens the nation-building process, enhances the critical thinking and analytical skills of youths, and fosters an understanding of diversity and cultures around the globe. On the other hand, it is expected to be a tool for promoting peace and social cohesion among peoples, but instead of contributing to the above motives, history education in Ethiopia has become a source of controversy, suspicion, hostility, and disharmony among the elites, politicians, and the people at large, and this finally leads the subject into failure. In short, our history teaching does not encourage secondary-level students to become critical thinkers, interpret the significance of the past, or clearly articulate why history education is critical to developing socially responsible and constructive citizens (Tong, 2012; Sisay & Enguday, 2022; Sorenson, 1992).

Therefore, the puzzle of why the discipline did not contribute to the desired level attracts the researchers to question themselves; there might be something that historians have left unexplored. We confirmed that the lack of comprehensive scholarly research on the topic under consideration further complicated the failure of history teaching in Ethiopian secondary schools because, if it had been studied deeply, at least it would be possible to stop the fast-tracking of its failure. I hope this study is required to fill the gaps, at least by analyzing and historicizing the multiple mysteries of why the discipline failed to yield the expected results. Therefore, we ultimately conducted this research to examine why history education has failed to yield its expected results since history became part of the Ethiopian secondary school curriculum from 1943 to 1991. The final year, 1991, was chosen because it marked the end of the Derg regime, and Ethiopian secondary school history teaching faced a new form of complexity that needs to be studied independently. Again, it is time and resource constraints that restrict the researchers from covering historical discourses up to 2023.

1.2. Objective of the study

1.2.1. General objective

The general objective of this research was to analyze why History Education in Ethiopian Secondary Schools (1943–1991) couldn’t could not yield the desired results.

1.2.2. Specific objectives

Based on the above general objective, the study will attain the following specific objectives:

1. Examining the several historical dynamics that bottlenecked secondary school history education in Ethiopia from 1943 to 1991

2. Justifying why the discipline does not contribute to the desired level under the specified periods

1.3. Research design

The researchers employed two qualitative research designs, which are a descriptive research design and a historical research method, working hand-in-hand because these methods are flexible approaches in order to understand and interpret historical phenomena deeply (Creswell & Creswell, 2017; Mertens, 2010). The above two designs were very essential to our research topic because, without applying both descriptive and historical research designs hand in hand, it was impossible to interpret the various dynamics that led the secondary school history education of Ethiopia into failure through the passage of time.

1.4. Sources of research data

The necessary data were gathered both from primary and secondary sources. Primary data, such as manuscripts, curriculum documents, original syllabuses, Selected and relevant secondary sources, such as history textbooks, articles, journals, and books, were used. We have used archives, history textbooks of the past three regimes, and syllabus documents since history became part of the secondary school curriculum from several organizations, including the National Archival and Library Agency (NALA) in Addis Ababa and the Ministry of Education (MoE). Published and unpublished secondary sources were received from the Institute of Ethiopian Studies (IES) and Kennedy Library in Addis Ababa, as well as all libraries at Bahir Dar University’s main campus in Bahir Dar city. Furthermore, digital sources such as Journal Storage (JSTOR), Education Resources Information Centre (ERIC), Project MUSES, and Google Scholar databases were also employed.

1.5. Method of analysis

In the analysis stage, only authentic and relevant documents from both primary and secondary sources were selected to utilize the document analysis design. The relevance and authenticity of sources were carefully examined after the researchers’ extensive reading of each source one by one. Then we cross-checked each other to organize the study thematically and chronologically. Finally, we interpreted to reconstruct why the secondary school history teaching of Ethiopia has failed to achieve its desired purposes since 1943 from a historiographical point of view.

1.6. Conceptual frameworks

Literatures identified that there were numerous factors that hastened the failure of history instruction in Ethiopian secondary schools (Awgichew & Ademe, 2022; Sileshi et al., 2023). But the major factors that lead the secondary school history teaching in Ethiopia are displayed in the following Figure 1.

Figure 1. Why secondary school history teaching could not achieve the desired purpose.

2. Literature review

2.1. The global, continental, and national context of history education

Studying the challenges of history education has received the attention of scholars since the nineteenth century, after it became an independent academic discipline through the unfailing efforts of a German historian called Leopold von Ranke. Since then, the Rankean tradition has been criticized as a mere narration of all historical events sequentially, which is not a feature of contemporary history (Sorenson, 1992; Zewde, 2000b). Researchers argue that after history gained the status of a separate academic discipline, the degree of complexity became multidimensional. At the turn of the twentieth century, history became a full-time profession in European and American universities. The negligence of diverse human aspects and the over dominance of political narratives were the common features (Adesina, 2006; Zewde, 2002). It was this criticism that caused the social and economic aspects of a human being to be studied comprehensively in historical studies, and the narrative mode got replaced by the analytical style (Hamerow, 1986; Zewde, 2002). No doubt, in the late 19^th century, a few thematic areas, such as political and military history, were the focus of global historiography. But the historical narration was solely focused on the top political and military officials rejecting the role of the masses. This finally led the historians to shift their historical study from underneath to upstairs, encompassing the views of the subject rather than the monarch and the fighter rather than the general (Zewde, 2002).

The inability to compromise the views of people forwarded about the rationality of teaching history education bottlenecked the discipline globally. As a result, some say history education is nonsense because it leads to the mere memorization of facts, people, circumstances, and dates. They negatively interpret the rationale of teaching history, missing the merits of developing the inquiry and analytical skills of the students (Hillis, 2010). Sometimes, the rationale for teaching history education varies from the point of view of historians and politicians. Politicians measure the values of history education by its potential to induce political ideologies, whereas historians measure the values of history education by its potential to build and promote shared values, ideas, and the development of evaluative and interpretive skills in the students. Historians argue that a coherent picture of the past is necessary to develop the above values, but politicians need history education to imbue political ideologies. Furthermore, history education is recognized as a key discipline to construct a common national identity, transmit collective memory from generation to generation, and shape imagined communities that can build a nation (Hillis, 2010; Paulson, 2015).

In Africa, secondary school history teaching was a recent phenomenon or was found in the infant stage. It was realized that after independence (since the 1960’s), with the help of the two institutions, the School of African Oriental Studies (SOAS) in London and the Department of History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the United States, they have played a significant role in training African historians who can study and reconstruct the continent’s overlooked history. Gradually, with the establishment of universities in Nigeria, Tanzania, Ghana, and Ethiopia, the history of African education attempted to encompass a wide range of issues that needed to be researched and studied. In other words, history teaching was undertaken, along with the internal and external challenges, until now (Zewde, 2000b).

In Ethiopia, the onset of secondary school in 1943 became a watershed moment for the beginning of history education because historical instruction would have been impossible without the start of secondary school education. The first secondary school opened on 23 July 1943, marking the introduction of history education, which has been a continuous part of the school curriculum since then. (Bekele, 2006; Bishaw & Lasser, 2012; Fiseha, 1992; Kassaye, 2007). ; Then the establishment of the National Archive and Library Agency (NALA) in 1944 marked a turning point for history education because this vital institution secured priceless historical documents, offering a treasure trove of research materials for educators and students alike. Just six years later, the University College of Addis Ababa emerged, fostering a new generation of historical scholars who would contribute significantly to the field. However, the real turning point came in 1963–1964, when the Institute of Ethiopian Studies and Haile Selassie I University’s history department were founded concurrently. (Gillett, 1963; Tegenu, 2014; Wion, 2006; Zewde, 2000b, 2002). Without the existence of the above domestic institutions, the training of history teachers in the secondary schools of the country would be impossible. The founding groups of history education went so far as to make the curriculum of history education more Africanist than Eurocentric, but they could not give equal emphasis to the economic, social, and cultural realities of all Ethiopian peoples (Crummey, 2001; Wagaw, 1990). Since the founding members were foreigners, the most critical challenges was imposing Eurocentric frameworks on Ethiopian history, interpreting it through their own understanding of development and state formation. This approach often failed to capture the unique features and nuances of Ethiopian experiences and this eased the failure of the discipline.

3. Discussions and interpretations

Analyzing the challenges of secondary school history education in Ethiopia is inherently complex due to the interplay of numerous factors. This difficulty in achieving desired outcomes manifests in both internal and external hurdles. Externally, influences such as foreign interests, foreign authors, and foreign teachers can play a role. Internally, factors like curriculum design, disciplinary issues, the perspectives of historians, the impact of ethnocentrism, the presence of competing narratives, and the varying state ideologies across different regimes all contribute to these challenges.

3.1. Foreign interferences

Following the Battle of Adwa and the construction of the Ethio-Djibouti Railway, Western penetration into Ethiopia intensified. The nation’s longstanding resistance to Western ideology finally began to weaken (Fiseha, 1992). During the reign of Emperor Menelik II in the early 20th century, Ethiopia embarked on a modern education system, which Haile Selassie I later expanded across various provinces. This breakdown of prolonged isolation facilitated the infiltration of Western values, cultures, and thoughts (Abir, 1970). Among the various tools employed by foreigners to disseminate their values, thoughts, and ideologies to Ethiopians, education played a prominent role. History teaching, in particular, proved highly susceptible to external influences (Wodajo, 1961). In the post-independence periods of Ethiopia, meaning since 1941, the British and American influence, as well as the impact of foreign authors, were visible.

3.1.1. British influence

In 1941, Ethiopia reclaimed its sovereignty after five years of foreign occupation. Following the expulsion of Italian fascists, Emperor Haile Selassie I returned to the throne, marking a new chapter in the nation’s history. Notably, the struggle for independence involved collaboration with British forces, who played a crucial role in driving out the Italian aggressors. This intricate historical context had a profound impact on Ethiopia’s educational landscape, particularly shaping the curriculum, teaching methods, and evaluation systems implemented by the British administration in the post-occupation period. By examining this transformative episode, we gain valuable insights into the dynamic interplay between political liberation, external influences, and the evolution of educational structures in Ethiopia. Their influence coincided with the restoration of Emperor Haile Selassie I in 1941, and rehabilitating the sector was a difficult task because many of the schools were demolished, teachers were massacred, and some left their nation (Asayehgn, 1979; Melese & Tadege, 2019; Wagaw, 1990). The British-led Ethiopian education system was designed to make students proficient in the English language. During their involvement, English was adopted as the medium of instruction. To accomplish this objective, all academic subjects were taught in the English language, starting in grade four, and textbooks primarily designed for the schools in the colonies were imported from England. It was Copts and other foreigners who took on the responsibility of teaching history before Addis Ababa University graduated the first history educators in 1966. Therefore, the dominance of the British government over the Ethiopian education system continued until the arrival of the United sate of America (USA) in 1952 (Asayehgn, 1979; Kemisso, 2009; Tekle, 2018).

When Ethiopian education was under the domination of the British from 1942–1952, the education policy in general and the secondary school curriculums in particular were under the dominance of England. Under the umbrella of the secondary school curriculum, the history syllabus highly emphasized the history of Western civilization and the story of the knights, ignoring the indigenous civilization of Ethiopia. To install their ideologies and civilizations, the teachers and the school principals were imported either from England or Canada or from the British colonies and protectorates, namely, India, Sudan, and the Middle East. The responsibility of secondary school history was continued by foreign teachers until Addis Ababa University graduated the first history class in 1966. Therefore, European interests and realities were highly observed. This was further continued even after the withdrawal of British experts from the education systems of Ethiopia (Asayehgn, 1979; Kemisso, 2009).

3.1.2. American influence

The other foreign influence that posed a great challenge to Ethiopian education in general and secondary school history education in particular was the American-led curriculum, which had been in use since 1952. The American-led secondary school curriculum in the Ethiopian education system neglected the socio-cultural aspects of Ethiopia and overemphasized the foreign aspects. The immediate post-independence era presented significant hurdles in localizing Ethiopia’s educational sector, especially in history education. This was partially due to a critical shortage of Ethiopian professionals equipped to teach history within the national curriculum. Furthermore, relying on foreign teachers, while intended to address this gap, presented its own challenges. Often unfamiliar with the intricacies and nuances of Ethiopian history, these instructors might unintentionally misrepresent certain events or perspectives, potentially hindering students’ understanding of their own past. Consequently, both the absence of indigenous expertise and the presence of teachers with limited local knowledge limited the effectiveness of history education in fostering a well-rounded and contextualized view of Ethiopia’s rich history. But after 1971, some improvements were observed because an important committee had been organized that aimed to review the deficiencies of the Ethiopian education sector, which comprises Ethiopian professionals (Kebede, 2007; Milkias, 2006; Wondemtegegn & Mekonnen, 2022).

The American-led educational policies in Ethiopia have alienated Ethiopian youth from Ethiopian realities because the history textbooks are full of Western history and values at the expense of Ethiopian realities and heritage. On historical pages that describe ‘France and Napoleon, Italy and Garibaldi, England and Gladstone’, nothing contributes to Ethiopia. Ethiopians must learn about Menelik II and his majesty and the realities of their own countries in Amharic. One can assure how little emphasis was given on Ethiopian aspects in the history syllabus that was developed in 1967–68 and 1971–72. Both the first and final drafts of the above manuscripts were written with 220 and 176 pages, respectively, and they were prepared as teacher guides. Except for the inclusion of a few contents, such as the introduction of Islamic religion in Ethiopia and the early mediaeval periods of Ethiopia, greater emphasis has been given to narrating European history from A.D. 600 to 1648 and African history from A.D. 642 to 1640 (Milkias, 1982; Tefla, 1972).

3.1.3 The impact of foreign authors

Foreign authors have played a great role in recording Ethiopian history, society, and culture through meticulous research, analysis of primary sources, and publication of academic works. These contributions helped to legitimize Ethiopian history as a serious field of study and introduced it to a wider audience. But the historical narration and writing that start from an external source and author are vulnerable to various challenges, whereas the narration and construction that stem from inside are quite better. Because foreign authors might unconsciously or consciously posed their own perspectives into the people being studied. Though, they played a role in disseminating and constructing the history of Ethiopia, foreign historians pose significant challenges in Ethiopian history education because of their unfamiliarity with the cultural ethos and nuances of the languages of the people of Ethiopia. As a result, much of their works are highly affected by A Eurocentric perspectives and interpretations. Because their sources are relied heavily on European sources. The way of describing historical events and the people of the country is still a source of controversy and suspicion among scholars. Unethical or derogatory explanations are common in their scholarly research papers. Scholars like Mordechai Abir, in their work on Ethiopian education and national unity, employed terms like 'Pagan Galla’ to describe the Oromo people. This framing, along with prioritizing terms like 'conquest’ when discussing Emperor Menelik’s territorial expansion in the late 19th century. (Bekerie, 2010; Habte, 1987; Mordochi, 1970), p. 2

Historical distortions and false narrations exist in some historical aspects of Ethiopia due to the predicaments of foreign authors and borrowed history. For instance, the state formation processes that start from the north to the south and other parts of the country are colonially interpreted by the misguided scholarly works of foreign authors. In short, the historiography that admires and regards foreign authors and travelers like Edward Ullendorf, Job Ludolf, and James Bruce as the founders of Ethiopian studies clearly demonstrates how Ethiopian history and culture are neglected. To argue on the western authors influence on Ethiopian education in general and history education in particular, Kebede (2003, pp. 1–2 calls it ‘a representation of Western scholarship’. Despite they left some biased records we can’t deny the contribution of foreign scholars, missionaries and travelers because they have produced a large body of writing on Ethiopian history (Kebede, 2003; Pankhurst, 1972).

3.2. Curriculum & syllabus related problems

3.2.1. The 1949 secondary school history syllabus and its drawbacks

It was in 1949 that a school curriculum that incorporates history as a body of knowledge came into being in Ethiopia with the help of British educational experts. One of the greatest limitations of this educational curriculum was the existence of universal historical aspects that ignored the realities of Ethiopia (Fiseha, 1992). Therefore, it was an imported education curriculum that lacked national ideology and Ethiopian values. The foundational curriculum that produced an Ethiopian generation that disassociated itself from Ethiopian values and cultures (Bekele, 2006; Kassaye, 2007). The prepared curriculum could not involve the public and professionals in the development processes. The presence of foreign interventions and dominance, particularly the British government during the time, led to the overemphasis of British social settings being highly visible in the 1949 educational curriculum (Getahun, 2016; Wagaw, 1990) Therefore, the history syllabus incorporated into the 1949 secondary school curriculum could not incorporate the realities of the nation due to the presence of western professionals and teachers (Fiseha, 1992). Finally, in 1956, the Department of Research and Curriculum Development proposed a new curriculum that could be implemented from 1957 to 1958 (Fiseha, 1992).

3.3.2. The 1957and 1958 provisional history syllbuses

Taking some lessons from the 1949 history syllabus, another two secondary school curriculums were released in 1957 by a committee composed of three expatriate secondary school teachers. One of the drawbacks of this syllabus began with the participants, because each of them was a foreigner who did not have adequate knowledge of Ethiopian realities.

3.3.2.1. Problems associated with objective statement

Experts in the field advised that the objectives of a given syllabus need to be stated clearly and unambiguously (Taba, 1962; Tyler, 1949). However, the objectives of the history syllabus in Ethiopian secondary schools’ provisional curriculum were ambiguous, controversial, and even overly ambitious. For example, there was a phrase that said the objective of history teaching is to produce a good citizen. Of course, history education eases the nation’s project of producing a good citizen, but this can be realized by the inclusion of the historical realities of the nation (Fiseha, 1992). How the syllabus did not aim to enhance the critical thinking and interpretive skills of the students has been clearly stated in the general purpose of history teaching at secondary school as follows:

(i) to inform the pupil of the past development of his own surrounding countries as well as the world at large. This information must be brought up to late so that the pupil may come to understand the social, political the economic problems of the modern world in which he lives. (ii) To broaden the mind of the pupil so that he will aware have, and take a lively interest in the size, age, and complexity of the world around him. One result that can be aimed at and hoped for is intellectual and social modesty in the face of the brave efforts, the success and the tragic failures of the past generation of humanity. (iii) To teach the pupil to weigh evidence and achieve a more balanced judgement of various civilizations so that he may choose wisely what is to be valued most in each and history so that he may distinguish between history and legend, and recognize biased and prejudiced. (iv) To develop citizenship. It is essential to the teacher to take into account who his pupils are, where they are, and what their cultural heritage is (Quoted from (MoEA, 1951/58), pp. 110–111).

From the above statements, it is possible to argue that the role of the syllabus was only to inform the students about the history of Ethiopia and the world. The sense of citizenship can be developed and fostered by including national historical topics. Of course, broadening the students’ knowledge about the history of the world is not bad, but first of all, they should have to know their country to answer the questions of who they are, how they came to be, where they are, and what their historical, cultural, and natural heritages are (Fiseha, 1992). Women were forgotten in the explanation of the objective, and from this one can easily understand that modern education was only allowed to males, neglecting Ethiopian women. The other ambiguity in the syllabus was merging the contents to be taught in the secondary school curriculum with the general purpose of history teaching. The overlapping has been made after stating the second purpose of the history teaching in Ethiopian secondary schools, which was read in the following way:

This same experience should also show pupils the connections that exist between historical events across the seven seas and the continents and help them to understand in this great world community of ours how what happens in the pacific area today may affect their lives tomorrow, how what happened 13 centuries ago in Mecca, 9 centuries ago in Constantinople, or 2 centuries ago in England, affect their lives today Quoted from (MoEA, 1951/58), p.110.

From the very beginning, it is wrong to coincide the content with the purpose of history teaching because each of them has their own space to be explained in detail. Surprisingly, the contents that were intermixed in the objective were alien topics, which means it had never given room to the teaching of Ethiopian history (MoEA, 1951/58), p. 109).

3.3.2.2. The ‘ways and means’

In the provisional secondary school curriculum, there was a statement referring to ‘way and means’, particularly in the history syllabus. Though it is ambiguous, I think the ‘ways’ refer to the methodology of delivering the contents of history, whereas the ‘means’ refer to the desired results that are expected from this particular secondary school history syllabus. In the ways and means of this syllabus, there are biographical, economic, and social aspects, but the syllabus clearly mentions that much emphasis will be given to the political one so as to understand the contemporary problems of Ethiopia and the world at large. Secondly, according to the document, history teaching was designed to enhance pupils’ understanding of global social, economic, and political issues. In other words, socio-economic and political problems, which are the concerns of the UN, are also the concerns of the secondary school syllabus in Ethiopia (MoEA, 1951/58), pp, 111–112). In this part, the syllabus was expected to describe the method of teaching that would be implemented to teach history in the secondary schools of Ethiopia, but it was missed in the curriculum. On the contrary, less-relevant issues were included, and this can be read in the following words (Further, see Table 1).

Table 1. The 1957/58 Provisional Secondary School History Syllabus Designed for (Grade 9-10).

Grade	Thematic areas	Topics	No of contents	Percentage
Grade −9 (First year)	Ethiopian History	None	0	0%
	African history	Egyptian civilization Roman Civilization The spread of Christianity The spread of Islam The rise of Turkish power	1	20%
	World history		4	80%
All total				100%
Grade 10 (Second Year)	Ethiopian history	None	0	0%
	African history	The races of Africa Great empires Art and custom The advent of Portuguese Slavery and the African	4	35.7%
	World history	Europe in the 15^th and 16^th century American India civilizations Chinese Japan Mongolia Southwest Asia Australia New Zealand	9	64.2%
All total				100%

Source: የኢትዮጵያ ንጉስ-ነገስት መንግስት የትምህርትና ስነ-ጥበብ ሚንስቴር (Imperial Ethiopian government ministry of Education and Fine arts Ethiopia, የሁለተኛ ደረጃ ስርዓተ ትምህርት (ለሙክራ የወጣ), Secondary school curriculum (Provisional). First edition, Addis Ababa-Cooperative Education Press. 1957/1958, EDU-373.

It is essential that proper atmosphere is can be created in which history teaching can be made as imaginative and stimulating as possible. Each school for example should have a special history room. As many pictorial aids as can be obtained should be used including maps to indicate the political and physical features of the world. In order to help the pupil develop and appreciation of things that are old and valuable in their own culture they should be encouraged to make up the school museum (MoEA, 1951/58), p.112).

Despite the document’s failure to mention the methods of teaching that are mandatory in a given syllabus, other less-relevant issues were raised. Since it is not important, the provisional syllabus attempted to shine a torchlight on what the history classroom environment seems to be, how the nation’s secondary schools prepared special history classrooms, and the necessity of the utilization of teaching materials in history classrooms.

3.3.2.3. Problems related to the contents of the syllabus

The syllabus classifies the contents of the secondary school history curriculum in terms of year, saying historical contents are given for the first year, second year, third year, and fourth year. It is to identify the time span of students from grades 9 to 12. Since the syllabus was provisional, the contents of grades 11–12 were not included. From the document, one can easily understand that a few African issues were included, but the rest talks about the history of the world. Beyond this, the number of historical contents listed for each grade must be equivalent, but the topics expected to be given for grade 9 were very small, and larger portions were selected to be delivered for grade 10 students. (See Table 1) (MoEA, 1951/58), pp. 110–113).

3.3.3. The 1963 secondary school curriculum and the history syllabus

In 1962, the imperial Ethiopian government Ministry of Education and Fine Arts set up a committee to revise the previous secondary school curriculum and come up with a new curriculum in September 1963. The curriculum revision had been a cause for the revision of the history syllabus that would be applied to the secondary schools in Ethiopia. More or less, the curriculum changes consider Ethiopian students, Ethiopia as a country, and the continent of Africa. In prior curriculums, which had been designed for Europeans and Americans, it was applied to Ethiopians, and it never gave emphasis to Ethiopian or African matters. The development process involved both secondary school and university teachers under the advisory of the Ethiopian United States Cooperation Education Program (EUSEP (MoEA, 1956/63)

In this curriculum, the history syllabus of the secondary school got better because it attempted to improve the euro-centric character of the provisional syllabus. Fortunately, the curriculum change coincided with the independence of African countries, and this played a role in the improvement of the 1963 secondary school curriculum in Ethiopia. Because the question of liberating African education from European influence had been raised by African scholars in many African countries before the independence periods, the participants in this syllabus development prioritized giving better room for Ethiopian realities in the 1963 school curriculum (Fiseha, 1992).

3.3.3.1. Shortcomings of the 1963 Ethiopian history syllabus

Far better than the former secondary school history syllabuses of the nation, the newly introduced history syllabus for Ethiopian secondary school students has brought visible improvements in terms of stated objectives. The syllabus had two general aims and five specific objectives that were going to be achieved at the level mentioned. As it has been clearly described in the syllabus, the general aims of history teaching would be to enhance the knowledge of Ethiopians about the history of their country and the acquisition of the basic skills and values of history by relying on evidence. The curriculum developers seemed to understand the necessity of evidence in historical studies, and this would help in distinguish facts from opinions, detect bias from falsehood, and establish the association of present problems with distant pasts (Fiseha, 1992; MoEA, 1956/63).

While the 1963 Ethiopian history syllabus was a significant development, it wasn’t flawless. Several shortcomings can be identified. For instance, it failed to show an attempt at the stated objectives and how they are interlinked with each other. This lack of clarity makes it difficult for instructors to assess whether students are progressing appropriately through the various levels of the curriculum Secondly, the stated objectives shouldn’t rely on the content of the curriculum. The stated skill objectives were also inadequately explained, and the way out, how could this be possible for the secondary school students, had been missed to be presented very well. For example, the need to study and know local history had been included in the objectives, but none of the local issues in the content of the syllabus had been incorporated. This might be a syllabus that laid the foundation for the beginning of studying local historical aspects and the birth of ethno-nationalist scholars in Ethiopia.

3.3.3.2. Inadequacies of the contents of the 1963 history syllabus

the newly developed syllabus boasts improvements in content breakdown and selection compared to the provisional one, significant shortcomings remain One of the limitations of this syllabus was the problem of redundancy or duplication of topics that were listed in junior secondary and again in senior secondary schools (MoEA, 1956/63) Another limitation of this syllabus is that the contents listed in it were very challenging to find in terms of teaching materials and utilizing teaching aids. On the other side, some of the contents mentioned in the syllabus were very vague for teachers to teach the students. This was, however, visible in the contents designed for Grade 11 students about the history of Africa. For example, there was a topic entitled Traditional Art, Customs, and Thoughts in Africa. It is very ambiguous for the teacher to teach such a topic with such diversified customs, traditions, and thoughts on the continent of Africa. The other problem is the imbalance of historical emphasis on the history of Africa, which means much time and space was given to teach the western part of the region compared to the rest of the continent. Similarly, the history of Europe got greater emphasis in the world history section that had been included in the secondary school syllabus. Generally, the then expatriate history teachers were required to teach all these vague historical topics at a time when teaching materials were not produced (MoEA, 1956/63).

3.3.3. The 1967 secondary school curriculum and the history syllabus

The 1967 curriculum was the fourth history syllabus, which had been prepared by a group of experts that comprised 10 individuals representing secondary school history teachers, university teachers, and experts from the ministry of education. Unlike previous curriculums, this one underwent rigorous review, with detailed feedback presented to the historical commission. The development team, armed with the 1963 syllabus’ limitations, meticulously dissected its flaws: misguided teaching aims, age-inappropriate content, unclear methods, vague topics, subjective interpretations, and a glaring lack of textbooks. This introspective critique laid the foundation for a significant evolution in Ethiopian secondary school history education (Fiseha, 1992; MoEA, 1960/67).

Furthermore, the newly adopted syllabus attempted to consider practical problems of history teaching in the secondary schools of Ethiopia. It has notified the concert challenges of history education, such as the inadequacy of teaching aids, reference books, and textbooks, and how they pose a challenge to realizing history teaching. The commission suggested both short-term and long-term solutions to mitigate the practical problems of history teaching in Ethiopian secondary schools. Based on the direction of the group, they agreed to organize a committee that could compile the necessary materials in a short period of time until a given committee prepared appropriate history textbooks. In 1966, after consensus was reached to omit the irrelevant issues of the 1963 syllabus, incorporate the appropriate topics, and reshuffle different historical themes, the new history syllabus was finally approved by the history commission to be applied from 1967. This secondary school syllabus continued to be practiced until the eruption of the revolution in 1974 without change.

3.3.5. Overview of the secondary school history syllabus of Ethiopia from 1974 to 1991

Starting from the period of the preparation of the 1949 history syllabus up until the eruption of the 1974 revolution, Ethiopia made multiple syllabus changes by conducting evaluations and reevaluations, despite the fact that the evaluation mechanisms were not based on deep-rooted research. The 1967 the history syllabus was the last syllabus developed by the imperial Ethiopian government, which was said to be better than other syllabuses, and as a result, it was continued until the coming of the Derg regime. Following the eruption of the revolution in 1974, the revolution had a plan to introduce a radical syllabus that could fit with global realities, but it realized the ideologies of the eastern world solely. The old syllabus was found to be insignificant, and the government allowed curriculum experts and secondary school teachers to design another new syllabus in line with the ideological alignment of Derg, which is socialism. The syllabus makers of the period had tried to prepare the syllabus based on the revolutionary passion of Marxism by condemning the prior syllabus as irrelevant. It was criticized that the curriculum of the Derg regime remained academic and elitist because the revolutionary discourse was similar until its downfall (Fiseha, 1992; Wagaw, 1990).

3.3.6. The 1976 secondary school history syllabus and its limitations

Before designing the transitional curriculum, Derg established the Curriculum Department in 1975. Then the transitional curriculum, altogether the syllabus of the socialist regime that was designed a year later, was founded. During the preparation of the curriculum, the primary and secondary school teachers, along with the CTE and university teachers, were involved. The secondary school history syllabus was prepared by taking socialist ideology into consideration (MoE, 1976; Wondemetegegn, 2016). (Instead of taking a positive lesson from the prior history syllabus, it had rather defined the purpose of its development, condemning the irrelevance of the 1967 history syllabus of the imperial regime and stating how the new syllabus is revolutionary and timely. The syllabus had fourteen objectives, and each of them was merely focused on the cognitive domain of learning, omitting the other domains of learning. It did not bother to stress the rest of the necessary historical skills and methods of historical study; rather, it had been filled with massive historical themes that could enhance the knowledge of the students. Generally, the designers were very devoted to select issues that could not contradict the political orientations of the regime because their ultimate purpose was to use the history syllabus for indoctrination. (MoE, 1976)

3.3.7. The 1984 history syllabus of Derg and its limitations

Along with the discourse of socialism, the Derg regime of Ethiopia came up with another new history syllabus in 1984. During the initial periods of the Derg regime, that is, in 1976, a transitional secondary school history syllabus was prepared by a group of people composed of people of different backgrounds without their own ideological orientations. They were called a social science panel that comprised secondary school history teachers, subject specialists, and educationists who took training in the preparation of the syllabus and curriculum. In the meantime, because of the arrival of invited experts from one of the socialist countries, East Germany, those who were involved in the development of the history syllabus were carefully selected based on their ideological beliefs (MoE, 1984). To promote socialist ideology, plentiful world history topics were included, whereas too little emphasis was given to the history of Ethiopia and Africa. Even the Ethiopian and African historical matters were selected only if they could have shown class oppressions and the exploitation of working people by the feudal class (MoE, 1979; Toggia, 2008). The incorporation of many world history topics enables the student to have a one-sided view of the globe by prohibiting them from deepening their understanding of local historical matters and national issues. However, this may give the students the message that local history is irrelevant or less important than the history of other worlds.

3.4. Challenges that arise from disciplinary issues

Regarding the field of history, there are several perspectives. The scope of the profession has led to many differing viewpoints, while a lack of understanding of the discipline has led others to reflect a variety of ideas. Some propagate the irrelevance of history education or removing history from the school curriculum. There are still scholars who think in the Rankean age and perceive history, and the task of the historian as simply to show how it really was, but history is beyond this. Similarly, in Ethiopia, there were attempts to remove the discipline from the academic arena without clear justification (Carr, 1961; Fiseha, 1992; Glassie, 1994; Issar, 2021; Schrag, 1963).

But history is a discipline of the mind because it is essential to promote moral training, inspire patriotism, and foster citizenship. It is an area of study that aids the generation in making sense of the environment they live in. Those who are learning history at all educational levels are supposed to be able to construct their own views, beliefs, and values by comprehending and interpreting the past. They can also develop knowledge of why the world is the way it is. Furthermore, while history education is very vital, some other scholars have said the key role of the discipline is to inculcate values and a strong national identity in citizens (Bekele, 2006; Chia, 2012; Gill, 1962; Itzkoff, 1962).

Therefore, disciplinary-driven challenges usually emanate from the understanding of the concept and purpose of history education (Voss & Wiley, 1997; Wesley, 1916). The wrong perceptions of historians towards the concept and purpose of history caused the respective countries to profit less from the discipline (Zewde, 2000a, 2000b). The wrong perception of history emanates from the definition of Herodotus, who was said to be the father of history. Herodotus viewed history as any written narrative of events. Additionally, his successors, Thucydides and Levy, also supported the above notions of their predecessors’ attitudes towards history. But contemporary historians refute the mere narration of past events without critical and analytical interpretation, which will hurt the history education of a given country. The case is true in Ethiopia because the understanding we have of the discipline has not gone beyond the definition given by Herodotus (Adeoti & Adeyeri, 2012; Kemisso, 2009; Zewde, 2000b).

The sources we used to construct history are another challenge that affected the development of the discipline in Ethiopia. As a result, the history syllabus in Ethiopia largely represents western dominance. Due to this, many historical narratives of Ethiopia do not show the concrete life of Ethiopia and its practices. To free secondary school history education from such gossip, Ethiopian historians should have to recraft the historical content to display the realities of Ethiopian life and practices at each level of the nation’s history education. But it is difficult to deny the contribution of foreign writers as a basis for constructing Ethiopian history (Kebede, 2003; Kemisso, 2009).

3.4.1. Historian-based problem of teaching history

It is undeniable that historical facts cannot speak for themselves without interpretations from historians. That is why Carr (1961, p. 16) remarks ‘The historian without his facts is rootless and futile; the facts without their historian are dead and meaningless’. Therefore, the role of the historian is to write and interpret historical facts rationally, identifying the myth from the facts and the history from the story. But the reality in Ethiopia is beyond this because historians are sometimes the sources of confusion, controversies, and misery, denying the facts and the purposes of writing and teaching history (Itzkoff, 1962).

In complicating the history education of the country, both domestic and foreign experts employed materials to recreate Ethiopia’s unbroken past that were disturbingly inaccurate, less clear, and incomplete. The state history was built using documentary sources such as royal chronicles, hagiographical literature, Greek epics, Arabic and European trip accounts, royal epigraphic monuments, and archaeological discoveries like coins, thrones, and palace remnants. The creation of skewed historical narratives is caused by the incapacity to choose sources and determine their reliability (Toggia, 2008).

3.5. Ethnocentrism and its impact

In Ethiopia, one of the challenges of history education is understanding the nation’s history through ethnic lenses. Mostly, this problem is visible after ethnographic historians have been involved in the process of deconstructing Ethiopian history since the 1960s. These types of historians (difficult to call them historians) want to reduce the long national history of the country at the expense of their false narratives and pay more attention to ignoring its lines of connection. For example, the territorial expansion of Menelik II before and after the battle of Adowa can be regarded as internal colonialism by Oromo and Tigrayan nationalists, and they also stated that Ethiopia is the prison of nation-state nationalities, which is far from reality. Again, the Eritrean nationalist discourse conceived the incorporation of Eritrean land into Ethiopia as an imposition of black colonialism. Always, ethno-nationalist authors use ethnicity and ethnic narratives to understand the historical and contemporary worlds. This type of feeling would also reflect the lack of shared history and values in the process of nation-building. The effort to accent difference without a proper understanding of Ethiopian history in its local, regional, religious, and socioeconomic colors can only bring negative results, contributing to the further politicization of history and relations between major groups in the country (Abbink, 2022; Sorenson, 1992; Záhořík, 2014).

3.6. The impact of competing narratives

One challenge facing secondary school history education in Ethiopia is the complex intersection of diverse historical narratives and ongoing scholarly debate. This can hamper progress and clarity in presenting historical topics. For example, differing perspectives on the ‘grand narrative’ approach, also known as the ‘great tradition’ or ‘Ethiopianist tradition’, can create friction and complicate the teaching of certain events or periods (Marzagora, 2017).(The nationalist narrative proponents start opposing the past glory of Ethiopia and struggle to build regional history and identity, whereas the grand narrative proponents extend a unified national identity into the distant past. The former wants to adopt their own distinct identity, and they are proud to be that ethnic group, rejecting the Ethiopian affiliation and believing in the existence of hegemonic people in the distant past, but later identify themselves as Ethiopians and argue there are no hegemonic people in the past, but they never deny the presence of hegemonic kings. The negation of the existing narrative in favor of an ethnicized one started in the 1960’s, but it has shed its fruits since the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) or following the onset of the ethno-federalist regime (Abbink, 1995; Awgichew & Ademe, 2022; Marzagora, 2017; Sorenson, 1992; Záhořík, 2014).

As in other parts of the world, Ethiopia benefits from incorporating diverse historical perspectives, particularly those of indigenous and minority groups. Integrating these alternative historical narratives into teaching and learning is crucial for constructing a shared national identity and fostering an inclusive understanding of the country’s past. This approach aligns with the essential goal of nation-building. However, selectively remembering and conveniently forgetting certain events hinders the development of a robust historical discipline. In this context, the role of academic historians becomes critical. Navigating the complexities of these often-conflicting interpretations, they must carefully analyze the available data, reconcile discrepancies, and present their findings to readers with transparency and nuance, acknowledging the potential for new evidence to emerge as research progresses (Toggia, 2008)

Instead of being sources of controversy, historical narratives tend to promote nation-building, reconciliation, and peace among the people of that nation. Here, secondary history education is positioned as being more about the pursuit of knowledge and wisdom than just teaching and learning about unjust historical events; it must compel teachers and students to reflect on their identities and consider what it would mean to reframe their ethical orientation to the past, present, and future, or to develop a renewed historical consciousness (Miles, 2019).

3.7. The state ideology and secondary school history teaching in Ethiopia

The global experience has shown that history teaching is one of the academic landscapes that is vulnerable to political maneuvering by states and the installation of political ideologies. In other words, history education is often a site for political contestation, both in schools and outside the school environment. By contrast, there are some nations, such as Japan, China, Taiwan, South Korea, and the Russian Federation, that carefully check their history textbooks to realize the key roles of the discipline and to use it as a tool for national ideological dissemination and the nation-building process. On the other hand, in India, Sweden, Canada, and England, state controls on history textbook preparation are minimal. The Ethiopian case is different. History writing and education in Ethiopia have been utilized by different regimes in the country to promote their respective state ideologies rather than being subjects of inquiry. The political ideologies of Ethiopian rulers enforced the nation’s history teaching and writing to emphasize and reflect only the state history of the dominant military and political groups, ignoring the rest of the realities of Ethiopian peoples who lived in Ethiopian territory (Chia, 2012; Toggia, 2008; Wondemtegegn & Mekonnen, 2022).

3.7.1. The imperial regime on secondary school history education

Among the subjects included in the secondary school curriculum of the imperial regime was history, in addition to Amharic, English, science, art, geography, arithmetic, music, handicrafts, and physical education. It was criticized that history education emphasized serving the interests of the ruling class while rejecting the interests and needs of the wider Ethiopian population. The teaching of history was not aimed at transferring knowledge, expanding truth, or building national identity; rather, it was concentrated on promoting the legitimacy of imperial power. Before 1949, there was no syllabus, professional history teacher, or curriculum that guided the contents and methods of the teaching and learning process. During the period mentioned, the focus of its narration was only restricted to facilitating mutual harmony between the Ethiopian Orthodox Church and the political ruling forces. The contents were more or less focused on the history of the north and central parts of the nation. Furthermore, it does not emphasize the social, economic, and cultural dimensions of the nation across all periods of Ethiopian history (Abbink, 1995; Seife, 2020).

3.7.2. The Derg on the secondary school history education

Two years later, after the eruption of the revolution, the Derg regime shifted its diplomatic ties to the eastern world, ignoring westerners, and declared Marxist-Leninist ideology to be the fundamental political philosophy of the government (MoEA, 1976). The dramatic changes made to the political landscape of Ethiopia urged educators to revise the curriculum in line with the political ideology of the state. The dramatic changes made to the political orientation of the country since 1974 forced the government to shift its focus to three broader themes, such as ‘education for production’, ‘education for scientific research’, and ‘education for political consciousness’ (Takele, 2018, p. 35). During the revolution, Derg launched massive illiteracy campaigns to reach the rural masses, for which the imperial regime has been blamed (Getahun, 2016; Tekle, 2018).

History was no longer taught to secondary school and higher education students as the study of the past, present, and future aspects of human beings during the Derg era. A large portion of the content was designed to increase the pupils’ awareness of socialism and to implant in them the revolutionary thought of the moment (Wagaw, 1990). In other words, secondary school history curricula place too little emphasis on Ethiopia and the Ethiopian worldview and place more emphasis on narrating the history of outsiders. This is because secondary and higher education history curricula place greater emphasis on enhancing socialist consciousness in youth (Bekele, 2006).

Events since the 1974 Ethiopian Revolution have brought fundamental challenges to Ethiopian secondary school history education. Because the new political philosophy and the regime believed that it was possible to induce an ideological shift from capitalism to socialism by using history as a tool, the 1976–1984 syllabus revisions were centered particularly on secondary school history teaching. Consequently, some adjustments to Ethiopian and world history have been made to fit with socialist ideology. Therefore, history education in the Derg regime focuses on associating the contents of history with Leninist-Marxist ideology. In general, teaching history was supposed to be the ideological agent of Marxism-Leninism ideology (Amare, 1988; Crummey, 1990; Kemisso, 2009).

3.7.3. Secondary school history education during the EPRDF

The state interference together with deficiency of genuine academic research in Ethiopia, history teaching became the source of political contest and ideological project of the past regimes. Three year later after the demise of the Derg regime, and the EPRDF came up with a new educational policy which that put the problems of education in Ethiopia into four broad categories: of complex problems such as relevance, quality, accessibility, and equity (Tekle, 2018). Following the footsteps of the imperial and Derg regimes, the EPRDF has also continued to use history as a tool propagating an ethnocentric-based federal system. Gradually, government-sponsored false narratives were written and disseminated for the realization of the project (Keller, 1981). This complicated the history education became more complicated after the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) controlled the country and restructured the administration systems of Ethiopia along ethnic lines of Ethiopia (Awgichew & Ademe, 2022).

Particularly, since 1994 TPLF regime, the politicization of history education was visible in at almost all grade levels of secondary school. Ethnocentric narration is the major challenge that faces history education after the coming of the EPRDF (Toggia, 2008). The regime totally denounced Ethiopia as country has no history arguing that the so called Ethiopian history is only emphasizes narrating about the three powers. These were the Amhara emperors, the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, and the Amharic language (Záhořík, 2014). Furthermore, the regime propagates the past history of the nation ignored to record the history of ethnic groups deliberately which is far from the fact. Unfortunately, except in some regions and urban centers, the regime was successful in creating a new generation that wants to hear about its local identity rather than the national historical narratives (Toggia, 2008).

Accompanied by the emergence of ethnocentric historical authors, much of the generation has accepted the notion that the Ethiopian past means the past, which only talks about the above three powers. Furthermore, this Tigrayan-dominated government of Ethiopia gave greater emphasis to subjects like civics than history in order to promote ‘diversity’ rather than unity in Ethiopia. This was deliberately done to undermine history education and to create a generation that couldn’t know about its past. As a result, regime deteriorates the long-aged unity of Ethiopia and facilitates the birth of ethnic-based historical narratives (Keller, 1981) Fabricating and disseminating of such wrong propagation. This is one of the characteristics of nations with an undeveloped political system and civil society. Nations who have a civilized political system and a civil society, it is would have been possible to check for the existence of politicized narratives in history education (Záhořík, 2014).

4. Conclusions

There is no doubt that secondary school history education plays an irreplaceable role in determining a nation-building project, and as a result, many works of literature have acknowledged this reality because it speeds up a nation’s development and unlocks human potential to better understand the world in which they live. However, this can only be achieved with the presence of an effective curriculum. Under the umbrella of education, history as a discipline contributes to shaping a nation’s nation-building project by enhancing the historical consciousness level of the generation and enhancing socialization within the community, but this can only be possible with the existence of an effective history syllabus. But the absence of standardized secondary school history syllabus has been a serious problem in Ethiopia.

The Ethiopian secondary school history teaching missed its track because it was hampered by two broad factors, such as internal and external. Externally, the interference of foreigners, the historical narrations of foreign authors, the onset of history teaching by foreign teachers, the import and use of history textbooks from England and the US, the existence of foreign curriculum, and teaching materials were some of them. This allowed them to use the history and teachings of Ethiopia to instill their ideologies and realities without limit. In this regard, Italians were the pioneers, despite the fact that history teaching was limited in Ethiopian primary schools during the invasion periods. After the independence period, the Ethiopian education system was under the hands of the British and American curriculum experts who imposed the realities of their respective countries ignoring the indigenous Ethiopian cultures and values.

Internally, state ideology influences, curriculum-based issues, disciplinary issues, historian-based factors, ethnocentric feelings, and competing narratives have also burdened the secondary school history teaching of Ethiopia since 1943. Unfortunately, history teaching was vulnerable to political maneuvering by states and the installation of political ideologies. On the other hand, the ultimate purpose of secondary school history education has been twisted to be used as an ideological tool and vehicle for Ethiopia’s ruling regimes. That means history writing and education in Ethiopia have been utilized by different regimes in the country to promote their respective state ideologies rather than being subjects of inquiry at the secondary school level. However, for instance, during the imperial regime, secondary school history teaching places a greater emphasis on telling the ‘Solomon’ origins of Ethiopian monarchs and their legends. Again, the history curriculum during the Derg era was aimed at spreading socialism and its achievements in communist countries. Generally, the political ideologies of Ethiopian rulers enforced the nation’s history teaching and writing to emphasize and reflect only the state history of the dominant military and political groups, ignoring the rest of the realities of Ethiopian peoples who lived under Ethiopian territory. As a result, the secondary school students of the country dislike learning a history that does not encompass the history of the whole Ethiopians.

The other factor that eased the secondary school history teaching failure was the existence of an alien educational policy written from a western perspective overburdened with irrelevant topics that exaggerate western traditions, and modernizations in the secondary school history syllabuses hastened its failure. This practically made Ethiopia’s secondary school history curriculum emphasize the history of expatriates while ignoring the country’s social, cultural, and economic aspects. The foreign policy, accompanied by foreign teachers, foreign books, and foreign textbooks, had also further hampered the teaching of history in the wrong way. This finally makes the subject less important and fails to realize its intended objectives.

Furthermore, the failure of history education stems from the historians themselves. Instead of writing and studying history to develop the discipline as a source of knowledge and a tool for nation-building, some Ethiopian historians use history education incorrectly to spread disharmony, suspicions, disparities, and hatred. These historians’ misinterpretations have created a wide-ranging mess in Ethiopia, posing a significant challenge to moving forward as a subject matter and contributing to history’s intended role as a discipline. Non-academic authors have written history in addition to historians, which has increased misinterpretations and false narrations because they ultimately want to appear as protectors of their ethnicity and the religions that they are from and follow. Therefore, this is yet another obstacle that has lagged behind the advancement of history education in Ethiopia. Furthermore, beyond the above giant challenges that hastened the failure of the subject, the mismatch between the credit hour and the content, the decrement of the teacher’s prestige and salary, the existence of inconsequential textbooks, language complications, and poor facilities are also suspected to ease the crisis of history teaching in Ethiopian secondary schools.

As a recommendation to minimize the challenges of Ethiopian history teaching in Ethiopian secondary schools, much is expected from the expertise of the profession. Hence, first, the curriculum and syllabus of history in Ethiopia need to be revised in a way that can promote a sense of nationalism and the nation-building process in the country. It is possible to do this by enabling the historical contents of the discipline to display the realities of Ethiopian life and practices at each level of the nation’s history education. Second, to minimize the political influence, the state should hand off its interference in history education and leave it to professionals. Third, while recrafting the curriculum of history in Ethiopia, professionals must take into consideration the need to provide much time and space for the realities of Ethiopia to liberate the discipline from foreign interference. Otherwise, selectively remembering and conveniently forgetting past realities drastically impacts the discipline’s development to reach its desired level.

Acknowledgements

Since I started to conduct this study and submitted it to this internationally accredited publisher, I have had consistent assistance from different contributors. However, it is vital to mention some of them. I have no words for both my principal advisor, Dr. Fantahun Ayele, and co-advisor, Dr. Aychegirew Hadera, because, without their careful supervision, thoughtful guidance, and constructive criticism assistance, this research paper would not have been realized. Secondly, my deepest gratitude goes to different institutions and their workers who gave me their consistent support while I was searching for valuable documents in IES when I was in Addis Ababa for field research. I also have special thanks to two institutions that covered my two-way air transport costs from Bahir Dar to Addis Ababa, and all the accommodation costs have been financed by the generosity of Beles-Paradise College and Pawi Wereda administrative office.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

Both primary and secondary data are available from the corresponding author up on reasonable request.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Ageru Shume Nadew

Ageru Shume Nadew is a senior history lecturer at Gilgel Beles Teachers Education (GBCTE). He received a Bachelor of Arts in History from Debre Berehan University in 2010 and an MA in History from Jimma University in 2017. He is currently pursuing his doctoral studies at Bahir Dar University since 2021. He has authored two articles on the challenges of corruption and globalization in Africa. His research interests are the challenges and prospects of history education in primary, secondary, and higher institutions in Ethiopia and Africa. He is now a candidate for a Doctor of Education in History at the Department of History and Heritage Management, Bahir Dar University, Ethiopia. He is the corresponding author of this research paper.

Fantahun Ayele Ibrahim

Fantahun Ayele Ibrahim (PhD) is an Associate Professor of history at Bahir Dar University in Ethiopia. He did his BA, MA, and PhD degrees at Addis Ababa University. He won the 2019/2020 Fulbright African Scholars Program, USA, and the Second Global Encounters Postdoctoral Fellowship in African Studies, Northwestern University, USA, in 2011/2012. He is the author of a book, The Ethiopian Army: From Victory to Collapse, 1977–1991, and many scholarly articles. His areas of expertise include the modern military history of Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa, conflict and security in the Horn of Africa, modern education, drought and famine, malaria epidemics, locust plagues, deforestation, and other aspects of environmental history. He is the second author of this study.

Aychgrew Hadera Hailu

Aychegrew Hadera Hailu (PhD) is an Assistant Professor of African history at Bahir Dar University. He completed his BA and MA degrees at Addis Ababa University in 2004 and 2009, respectively. He earned his PhD in 2016 from Bayreuth University, Germany. In 2009, he received the Department of History at Addis Ababa University’s Outstanding Post-Graduate Students Award. He is the author of the monographs ‘Pioneering Local NGOs in Ethiopia: The Case of the Association for the Destitute (1964–1971)’ published in 2010 and ‘NGO Visions of Development in the Changing Contexts of Ethiopia, 1960–2015’. He is also one of the authors of the teaching material ‘History of Ethiopia and the Horn’, a common course for all freshman higher institution students in Ethiopia. Currently, Dr. Aychegrew works as a teacher and researcher in the department of history and heritage management at Bahir Dar University, Ethiopia. He is also the third author of this study.