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Introduction Following the change of government in 1991, Ethiopia's education system has been undergoing fondamental change. No part of the education system has been left untouched. A centralized administration was replaced by a decentralized one in line with the principle of federalism under which the current government has been organized. The federal Ministry of Education, which was highly centralized in the past, has now been decentralized into many states, district-level bureaus, and departments demarcated on ethnic lines. The decentralization process, in addition to devolving authority, has brought with it various change initiatives, one of which is the change in media of instruction. Until the current government took power, the media of instruction in Ethiopia's formal education system were Amharic (for elementary level) and English (for junior high and above). Whereas the socialist government (1974-91) had encouraged the use of some 15 ethnic languages in non-formal education, the imperial regime (which ruled the country until 1974) preferred to use one official language (Amharic) with the intention of safeguarding national integrity. According to the 1994 census, more than 80 ethnic groups exist in Ethiopia. The new ethnic-based states were demarcated into 14 (at least initially) ethnic-based boundaries that comprise as many as 20 ethnic groups per state. The number of languages used as media of instruction varies from state to state. In the Southern Nation, Nationalities and Peoples Regional State (SNNPRS) alone, for instance, eight local languages of instruction have been in use at the primary level (Cohen, 2000). The authors of this work appreciate the advantages of vernacular education for children but argue that rushing to formulate and to implement the new instructional language policy, without considering such factors as the existing unbalanced level of development among the newly created states and the absence of any meaningful preparation to deliver education in the newly chosen languages, appears to be more of a political gimmick than a sound pedagogical move. The current study intends to explain the formulation, implementation, and outcome of Ethiopia's instructional language policy in light of the PRINCE system of power analysis as adapted by Fowler (2004) along with several literature references pertinent to the issue. After providing a brief background on Ethiopia and its education and language of instruction policies, this article analyzes the formulation and implementation of Ethiopia's present instructional language policy and problems therein. Background Ethiopia According to the census data of 1994 (the most recent year for which data are available), Ethiopia has a population of 63 million, the second largest in Sub-Saharan Africa. About 83% of the population lives in rural areas engaged in subsistence agriculture. As per the census, the adjusted total fertility rates are 6.74 for the country, 4.5 for urban areas and 7.2 for rural areas. The estimated infant mortality rate for the country is 11.6%. The primary school age population (7-14) constitutes 12.6 million, while the secondary school age population (15-18) totals 5.58 million. About half of the population is female. Religion is one of the socio-cultural characteristics of the population. According to the census, the composition by religion shows that 50.6% are Orthodox Christian, 32.8% Muslim, 10.2% Protestant, 4.6% followers of traditional religion, and 1.6% constituted by other religions. Ethnic diversity is one of the most important attributes of the population. The 1994 census data identified over 80 ethnic groups in the country. The distribution of the major ethnic groups and their proportions in the population are provided in the Appendix. Education in Ethiopia Ethiopia is unique from other African countries in that it was never colonized by any foreign power except a five year invasion by Italy from 1936 to 1941. …
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