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In the history of humankind, the subject of Civic Education originated in the ancient Greek city-state, Athens where the aim was to create active and participant citizens for Athenian direct democracy. Modern Civic Education is founded on these ancient ideas. As said by Vasiljevi (2009), the modern Civic Education was largely implemented in the educational system of the United States at the beginning of the 20th century. But later, it extended all over the world, including Ethiopia.
In the educational system of Ethiopia, the three successive regimes of the country taught Civic Education in their time of governance with different objectives and goals. For instance, during imperial regime, the type of Civic Education was Moral Education and its purpose was to shape the behavior of students in line with the Orthodox Christian faith so that they could remain compliant to the prevailing political, social and economic order (Alemayehu,2006). During military regime, Political Education was the type of Civic Education with the aim of inculcating the socialist political ideology in the mind of students (Fetene, 2017). However, both types of subjects in these two regimes cannot be taken as Civic Education because they did not deal with the rights, freedoms and duties of Ethiopian citizens but they primarily served as for propagating regimes ideologies rather than nurturing behavior of students (Tilahun, 2006). It is only in the current regime of Ethiopia; Civic Education has renamed as Civic and Ethical Education (CEE).
CEE is one of the currently growing disciplines in Ethiopia having its own contents, methods and objectives. It is the discipline which has incorporated with the curriculum and offered to students in different levels of education in Ethiopia under the guidance of Ministry of Education since 2003. The subject has its own objectives: to teach students about democracy and democratization, human right, constitution and constitutionalism, and other basic concepts of democratic institutions and democratic state. Furthermore, it aimed to capacitate students to attain sophisticated minded, civility, righteousness thinking as a rational man through nurturing generation attitude (Tadesse, 2019).
Even though CEE has been contributing considerably to building good behavior, creating active and participant students, the changes it has made are not significant (Bayeh, 2016). This source also highlights that various government reports and documents show CEE curriculum has low quality and achievement. So that, until now its outcomes are not promising. Equally, the survey conducted by Yamada (2011) evidences that the content of CEE does not fully equip students with the desired democratic and ethical values, attitudes and characters. In addition, Yohannes et al (2017) describes that an inadequate preparation of teachers, and not having enough teachers particularly trained in the fields of CEE are challenges that have still faced the discipline. Similarly, Alemayehu (2006) and Lemma (2006) highlight that the CEE curriculum in building good behavior of students has not fully been observed in practice on the ground due to its poor implementation.
As a result, it is easy to listen complaints of individuals on efficiency of CEE to attain the required goals in Ethiopia. Beyond, it is observed that the attention of schools in teaching and practicing the roles of CEE is not as hot concern as the years 1990’s (Fetene, 2017). It is common exercise of day to day practice of many individuals in the country concerning the continuity of unethical moral and behavioral crisis of Ethiopian children and youth. So that; in reality’ the moral value of civic and ethical principles which the subject enhanced does not show expected results from the recipient and deliberative agents (Bayeh, 2016). For that reason, it is critical to examine whether or not the CEE is effectively improving the behaviour of students at secondary school levels. Is the CEE, in fact, fruitfully nurturing the behaviour of students in the study school? This is the central question in this study.