Modern Education in Jimma Town, Southwest Ethiopia: A Historical Survey, 1930-1991

This article attempts to reconstruct the introduction and expansion of modern education from1930 to 1991 in Jimma Town. Following the incorporation of Jimma into the empire of Menelik II, there had been a gradual influx of Orthodox Christians to the town. This increase in the number of Christian settlers from northern and central Ethiopia could be regarded as an immediate factor for the establishment of Church and subsequently of church education in Jimma. However, Quran education predates Church education in Jimma town mainly because Islam was the established religion in Jimma before 1930s. There had, been no churches in the town until the beginning of the 1930 and no church education too. The establishment of modern government school in Jimma was part of the general process of extending modern education in the country from the late 1920s and early 1930s onwards.