The Practice of Character Education with Special Focus on Personal, Social and Emotional Learning in Ethiopian Elementary Schools: Experiences of selected Schools in Adds Ababa

Despite the implementation of Civic and Character Education (CEE) in Ethiopian schools, the students’ anti-social behavior is found to be the critical problem, which hinders the teaching-learning process in Addis Ababa schools. Research has repeatedly shown that adequately implemented character education with particular focus on SEL helps reduce problem behavior, decrease emotional distress, and improve positive social behavior and academic performance of students. The objective of the research was to scrutinize how sufficiently SEL is incorporated in Ethiopian CEE curriculum. The study was also intended to check the need for integrating PSEL in the Ethiopian school’s system. A qualitative study was conducted to gather information, analyze, interpret, and arrive at conclusions and recommendations. The study was conducted in ten elementary schools in Addis Ababa. The existing Ethiopian CEE curriculum was reviewed to check to what extent PSEL contents are covered in the manual. The result of the study shows that PSEL contents are not sufficiently covered in the existing Ethiopian CEE. The study also confirmed that there is a dire need for incorporating PSEL in the Ethiopian school system. The results of this study and the report of the test-run training will be presented to the MOE in order to influence their weaving PSEL into the DNA of Ethiopian schools.