1. Major Rationales Of The Program

The major rationales for launching Civics and Ethical Studies program are the following.

1. Global Level

Now a day there is a need to have citizens with the knowledge of the present highly globalized world, so as to withstand with the challenges and the fast changing developments on global level.

Globalization evolves into world scale operations affecting negatively or positively all citizens of the world indiscriminately regardless of level of development, geographic location or political orientations. This global phenomenon manifests itself into four mega trends: increased interdependence, regionalization, nationalism and democratization.

These trends strongly call particularly for citizens of the developing world to cautiously adapt themselves and build their capacity to critically study the unfolding effects thereof. These attitudinal changes in the behaviors of citizens in the developing world should finally help them to cultivate global understanding and remarkable competitive skills, they will definite meet these changes they develop the highest sense of civics responsibilities and ethical standards.

1. Regional Level

We, Ethiopians, as part of the East African region and the citizenry of the entire Africa continent, are also witnessing drastically new continental and regional developments of remarkable complexity and intensity directly affecting on country in particular and all countries, there in, in general, one can overtone the following major trends as vivid examples.

Co-operation

 Provides one major trend where Ethiopia and its citizens are extremely required to work out and adapt on a large scale, new, suitable and timely approaches. Our country’s role in the newly arrange African Union are so crucial that they require its government and its citizens to redefine their contributions a new Ethiopia is also an active member with an ever expanding influence to regional organs like common market for central and South African states, as well as inter-governmental association for development.

Ethiopia furnishes the seat for the head quarter of AU, ECA and several other regional organizations.  In the immediate future, on country will search for new regional and continental venues as destination for its citizens to be aware of this unfolding trending of high political, socio – economic and cultural significance.

Co-operation, both on functional strategies and structural visions, is therefore, the emerging national project requiring a large degree of consensus among Ethiopian citizens guided by a remarkable sense of civics and ethical responsibilities.

Conflict Management and Resolution

Despite Ethiopia’s commitment and determination for productive and effective co-operation and integration at continental and regional levels, the peculiar nature of historical, geographic, economic and political relations in the region crops up multifarious and persistent conflicts.  Some of these conflicts have been issues of top general security concerns whose management and solutions strongly need total, persistent and active citizen participation.

Conflicts in the region by their origin, cause factors, extent and depth can be brief or persistent and long or permanent and destructive or outside in or inside out by their directions.

As conflicts poise gross impediments, their management and resolution should best be organized and guided by highly scientific, systematized and rationalized approaches from generation to generation.  Equally important are commitments, loyalties, integrities, competencies and diligences of citizens survived by a qualified Civics and Ethical Studies at universities and for all students.

Students of the present and future generation are to be moulded as peace – loving, cooperation opting and conflict managing citizens so that our country glows to be a beneficiary of an established regional peace culture.

Interdependence

Interdependence is one of the major hallmarks characterizing international relations at present.  Ethiopia is not an exemption to this current arena of international relations. Ethiopia, however, as all other developing countries enters the era of this global interdependence with extremely weakened bargaining power, poor selecting and sifting mechanisms and poor national capacity of reversing undesired influences.

So having the program of Civics and Ethical Studies in high education system is quite important for systematic socializing program that could train and nurture its citizens to guarantee themselves against the dangerous effects of cultural imperialism.   

• National Level

Ethiopia has now been experiencing since 1991 a profound socio – cultural, economic and political transformations, across the country, drastically new patterns of social relations and values systems are rapidly taking shape.  Entirely new ways of viewing the overall environment is introduced into the Ethiopian tradition by various controlled and uncontrolled means of communication.

Among others, the rapid expansion in education is beginning to affect the whole citizens of the country, by introducing and expanding secular, rational and scientific thinking.

One can list, form among the vast rubrics, the following values transformations:

• Anti-poverty, diligence, group – work, self – employment, micro – enterprise development, free competition, saving, investment, entrepreneurship and other values.
• Values of civics participation like elections, self – administration, decentralization, peaceful competition, multipartism, representative democracy, conflict management, depoliticized civil service, etc.
• Socio – cultural values like unity in diversity, linguistic, religious, ethno – cultural and gender equalities, anti- corruptions’ ethical standards, the right to self – determination up to succession, agriculture industrialization, rural life, urban quality of life information and communications.
• Common values like an independent age old Ethiopian state, national symbols, i.e., flag, emblem and anthem, constitutionalism etc.