Inclusion of indigenous knowledge in the new primary and middle school curriculum of Ethiopia

This study investigated the inclusion of indigenous knowledge (IK) in the Amhara Region’s new primary and middle school textbooks in a trial. For this purpose, book reviews of the three purposely selected primary and middle school textbooks were made. Besides, data were collected from 372 teachers and interviews were also made with 28 sample teachers. The collected data were analyzed quantitatively using number counts, percentage, mean and standard deviation, whereas the qualitative data were analyzed using descriptions and text narrations. Findings revealed that although there are encouraging attempts to include IK in the textbooks, still the inclusion of IK in the new textbooks is not significant. In the Grade 5 Environmental Science textbook, only a few lessons involve twenty-eight out of one hundred fifty activities that indicate IK. Similarly, in Grade 6 Environmental Science, it is only eleven out of one hundred-six activities, and in Grade 7 Social Study, thirteen out of sixty-six activities enable learners to share IK systems. Besides, in the Grade 7 General Science, about 79% of activities in the lessons were not directly inviting learners to link them with their IK. The findings of the three sample textbooks revealed that the majority of contents that included exercises, project works, and graphic representations demonstrate a low level of context-based IK incorporation. Accordingly, despite some progress being made, the newly designed textbooks still require more improvements in including more context-based and IK-focused activities in the lessons and the proper integration of IK with 21st-century skills. © 2023 The Author(s). This open access article is distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) 4.0 license.