ABSTRACT
In 1994 Ethiopia adopted a multilingual national Education and Training Policy (Ministry of Education/MoE 1994), which calls for the use of learners’ mother tongues for literacy and learning through the full eight years of primary schooling. This policy includes the teaching of Amharic (beginning in grades 3 or 5) to the 73% of students with other home languages. English is introduced as a subject starting in grade 1 and is the official medium of instruction (MoI) from grade 9 onwards (in secondary and higher education). The policy is bilingual for L1 speakers of Amharic and trilingual for speakers of other languages (L1 + Amharic + English).
