University Entrance Exam Results Not Good & more – 12th Oct 2023

Salaam salaam from BA! This is the Rorshok Ethiopia Update from the 12th of October twenty twenty-three A quick summary of what's going down in Ethiopia.

The Ministry of Education released the results of the university entrance exam on Tuesday the 10th. They are available on their website and Telegram. Students can also text their ID. All the data is available in the show notes!

The numbers were shocking: only three percent of the students scored more than fifty percent and passed the exam. Out of the almost eight hundred and fifty thousand who took the exam, only twenty-seven thousand passed.

Last year the Ministry introduced the remedial program because of the high number of students that failed the exam. The program helps students who have failed by a close margin to improve their knowledge of the subject or subjects they flunked. At the time, the Minister said that the program was a ‘one-time thing’. During a presser, the Minister revealed that the remedial program will continue this year. Sixteen thousand students who attend evening high school programs took the exam and a mere twelve of them passed. More than a thousand and three hundred schools didn’t have a single student who passed the exam. The Ministry said students can only submit their complaints online until Monday the 16th.

Meanwhile in Tigray, since the region had been at war for some time, The Ministry decided to postpone this year’s university entrance exam to give examinees enough time to study. Students began taking the exam this week on Tuesday the 10th. Some ten thousand examinees are sitting for the test, which is being held in four universities throughout the region. The Ministry of Education said that it would announce the results within a week and place students who passed from Tigray together with examinees from other regions to universities.

Speaking of Tigray, the region is still dealing with the aftermath of the war which ended almost a year ago. The World Health Organization recently published a report saying that eighty-six percent of health facilities in the region have been damaged to varying extents and that more than seventy percent of medical equipment has been rendered defunct. The organization said it will release another report on the state of health facilities in the Afar region (where some fighting had taken place) and will prepare another report on the Amhara region.

A few months ago, the US Agency for International Development (more commonly known as USAID) and the World Food Programme (or WFP) decided to stop distributing aid because of allegations that aid was being stolen. This week, the WFP announced that it will resume distributing aid but only to refugees sheltered in Ethiopia. The program decided to resume aid distribution after it put in place security and monitoring systems. There are currently over nine hundred thousand refugees in Ethiopia, one of the highest in the world.

Ethiopia is still in a state of emergency, which was declared more than a month ago because of the conflicts in the Amhara region. It was around that time that the government began arresting journalists who were covering issues surrounding the conflicts. Three journalists arrested at the time remain in custody. The Committee to Protect Journalists (better known as the CPJ) urged law enforcement to immediately release them. Two journalists work for online news outlets while one of them is the director of a show of a private radio station. After their arrest, all three of them were temporarily held at the Federal Police Crime Investigation Center but the police transferred them to a military camp 145 kilometers away from the capital. The CPJ said the detention alarmingly indicates Ethiopia’s antipathy towards the media.

Since we mentioned the capital, in Addis, three-wheeled vehicles or ‘tuktuks' and motorcycles have been outlawed for more than a month in relation to holiday festivities because they posed security risks. These vehicles are easily maneuverable and can fit in tight spaces and roads, so they are preferable runaway vehicles for criminals. However, The city’s transport bureau lifted the restrictions on Tuesday the 10th. This decision only concerns those vehicles that had been registered with the pertinent government agencies. Regarding motorcycles, only those with a special license and equipped with GPS are allowed on the streets. Basically, the lifting of sanctions only applies to vehicles that have their papers in order.

Speaking of wheels, in Ethiopia, ride-hailing apps’ popularity has increased over the past few years. Two local companies ‘Ride’ and ‘Feres’ (which literally means horse) dominate the market. International tech firm Yango announced recently that it has officially entered the Ethiopian ride-hailing app market via a franchising deal with local tech firm G2G IT group. Yango’s Africa office head said that the deal will forge exceptional service provision by bringing together Yango’s international expertise and quality standards and G2G’s local market knowledge. Yango operations will be overseen by G2G. The ride-hailing service is yet to begin, but when it does, it will make Ethiopia the thirteenth African country in which Yango is available. Although the company plans to roll out digital payment features in the future, when it starts operating, users will only be able to pay in cash.

In more business news, Alana Group, an Indian company that operates in Ethiopia that mainly exports meat, said that it will be forced to cease operations unless it’s given a license to import using the foreign currency generated from the exports. There’s a shortage of foreign currency in the country, and the government wants to take as much foreign currency away from the market as possible.

The company said that the profit margins of only exporting meat are not conducive to keeping the business running. Alana Group added that it is buying meat for more than the market price, losing money. The company’s managing director recalled that Alana Group had stopped operating for two years from twenty nineteen to twenty twenty-one for this same reason.

On Tuesday the 10th, the Ministry of Revenues and the Customs Commission jointly stated that the past fiscal year’s selected loyal taxpayers will be awarded on Thursday the 12th at the Prime Minister’s Office. The Minister of Revenues said that five hundred taxpayers who have closely adhered to tax and customs laws, and contributed significantly will be rewarded at the event. These taxpayers will receive a certificate and a trophy or a medal. The government has prepared different kinds of awards - platinum for fifty awardees, gold for a hundred and fifty, and silver for the rest. The government has been giving out these awards since twenty eighteen. This year’s number of awardees is the highest ever.

And to close this edition…Ethiopia is world famous for its long-distance runners. So far this year, Ethiopian athletes have won multiple gold medals in numerous sporting events. And these athletes continue to do their home country proud as two women athletes - Gudaf Tsegay and Tigist Assefa- made it to the nominees list of the twenty twenty-three Women’s World Athlete of the Year award. World Athletics, a sports governing entity, gives out these awards annually. It announced that an international panel of experts picked the nominees. Both athletes’ nomination is well-deserved as Tigist broke the women's marathon world record at the Berlin Marathon while Gudaf not only won gold in the ten thousand meters at the Budapest World Athletics championship but also broke the women’s five thousand meters world record. The nominees list will be reduced to five in a month. Fans will be able to cast their votes using World Athletics social media handles until the 28th of October. The final result will be announced on the 11th of December.

Aaaaand that’s it for this week! Thanks for joining us!

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Ciao!