The Addis Ababa Education Bureau which supervises private schools to Capital it has closed 59 schools due to violations like unqualified teachers, not having a library, laboratory, sport fields, or unsanitary toilets and dilapidated sleeping areas for children.
Thirty four of the closed schools are kindergartens, 14 primary schools and nine are high schools. Four high schools received a final warning and will have to be evaluated at the end of this fiscal year in order to continue operating.
Last year the Bureau revoked licenses for 35 schools.
The Bureau found that the school owners were more interested in making money than maintaining standards in schools.
Students from these schools were advised to enroll elsewhere before the start of the school year, which began last week.
Primary and High Schools are supposed to have a standard classroom and a sports field where kids can play basketball and volleyball. The KG must have a neat and a comfortable teaching classroom and sleeping room for the children.
Fikerte Abera, Deputy Director of Education Relevance and Quality at the Bureau told Capital that the supervision was performed with a strict checklist and the schools are being closed to improve the quality of education.
She added that although private schools are contributing to the educational development of the state, they must operate within the law.
She said that the government took action after several warnings by the inspectorate unit of the Bureau for the proprietors meet the set standards
“The decision to embark on the closure of poor schools across our capital city is a deliberate step towards improving the standards of quality education in Addis, we will not tolerate schools operating without a laboratory, toilet and library,” she said.
Fikerte said the schools also failed to scale through the verification carried out by the task force set up by the Bureau. She said that supervision will be a continuous exercise and any school that fails  to meet the requirements at any point will  be shut down, until such school does what is expected.
Currently 1,631 private schools are operating in Addis Ababa among these 919 are Kindergartens, 569 primary schools and 143 high schools.