Professor Getnet Tadele High School

PGTHS is located about 150 km southwest of Bahir Dar, in the town of Azena, Awi Zone.  The school is named after the first person from Azena to attend university, Partners’ volunteer research and resource mobilization advisor and professor of sociology at Addis Ababa University.

Like all our high schools, PGTHS is a brand-new facility.  The project was initiated by the community, which covered 75% of the total project cost up front and donated 6 hectares of land. The land has been used for constructing the necessary physical facilities, developing green outdoor classrooms and educational gardens, providing water, and creating spaces for different sport and co-curricular activities.

The school comprises 16 furnished classrooms, an administration block with a first aid space, a library, biology, chemistry, physics and ICT laboratories, separate latrine blocks for boys and girls, and a menstrual hygiene management room for female students and staff. PGTHS was officially inaugurated on October 30, 2022 in a colorful ceremony attended by Ethiopia’s State Minister of Education, Partners’ co-founders and staff, community leaders and government officials, and thousands of residents of Azena and the surrounding kebeles.

The school opened with 815 ninth graders ((375 of them females) and 44 teachers (11 of whom are female) in September 2022.  The teachers are provided and paid for by the district education office. The school is connected to the town’s water system, and since August 2022, school greening and gardening, teacher and leader capacity development, hygiene and sanitation training and follow-up, as well as eye care and awareness raising on stigmatizing skin diseases, have been ongoing.

 In addition to enhancing high school education for both girls and boys from socio-economically disadvantaged backgrounds, the construction project provided approximately six months of employment for 40 unskilled (60% women) and 15 skilled workers from the community.