Ethiopian National Project: Scholastic Assistance Program 2009 – Main Findings from the Third Evaluation Report about Program Impacts

The Ethiopian National Project (ENP) is a partnership between the Jewish Federations of North America, the Government of Israel, representatives of Ethiopian Jewish community organizations, the Jewish Agency for Israel (JAFI), the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee in Israel and Keren Hayesod-UIA.

The ENP scholastic assistance program is provided to Ethiopian-Israeli students in junior high and high schools and is aimed at improving their achievements in matriculation exams and at reducing the dropout rate among these students; it does so by providing interventions addressing scholastic, emotional and social aspects. The program is implemented by four providers: The Branco-Weiss Institute, ORT-Israel, the Israel Association of Community Centers and Maksam.

In 2008/9, the scholastic assistance program was implemented in 96 schools in 26 localities and some 5,000 students in grades 7 through 12 participated. This represents a decline in the total number of participants, which was due to a significant decrease in the funding available to the program.

The ENP has been accompanied by an extensive ongoing evaluation since its inception. There has been a series of annual reports. In this report, we focus on a number of major indicators of the academic impacts of the program:

  • Perceptions of the school principals and students about the program’s contribution to scholastic success and the students’ emotional and social well-being
  • Success in the national matriculation exams
  • The extent and pattern of dropping out and transferring out of the schools after 9th grade.

.The study was initiated and funded by the Ethiopian National Project