The Ministry of Education set a temporary schedule for National University Entrance Exam of grade 12 to July 14-17. According to a notice posted on all sub cities of the City Administration, the ministry has programmed the schedule hoping that normal classes would resume by June 7, 2020.
On March 16, 2020 Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed ordered to close all schools across the country and for university students to remain where they are deterring mobility for two weeks for fear that the virus will spread.
And on March 27, 2020 the government decides to extend the closure for two more weeks and students from higher education to go back to their home, while the duration of school closures remains uncertain.
Although, the ministry has set the schedule hoping that the government could contain the spread of the virus as soon as possible. For grade 1- 11, the ministry has scheduled to start school before May 17 and to continue up to the end of June. The ministry has differentiated different subjects which should be focused to all grade starting from grade one up to grade 12 to finish the academic year as soon as possible.
At the beginning of current academic year the ministry was planning to conduct the national entrance exam from June 1 up to June 3. Moreover the printing of exam materials, which is done at Berhanena Selam Printing Enterprise, is still put on hold.
According to Zelalem Mulatu, Addis Ababa Education Bureau Head, the plan may not be feasible unless the government removed the state of emergency and control the spread of the virus.
Ethiopia has around 20 million pupils in Ethiopian schools and nearly a million in the 50 public universities and more than 250 private academic institutions, all of which represent high potential transmission sites.
The Ministry also announced that private schools should keep paying their employees and also negotiate with parents of students on reduced tuition fees.
As the ministry suggested private schools should cooperate with parents in different options including giving time to parents who can’t afford to pay the monthly payment on time because of Covid 19 and to cancel for those who can’t afford at all; however schools should not stop paying monthly fee to their employees.
Ministry of Education has announced that parents of private school students should only pay 75 to 50 percent of their monthly payment.
The Ministry of Science and Higher Education that is responsible for Universities across the country announced that it is considering making instructional materials available online for students.
Dechasa Gurme, Communication director of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education said “if things get back to normal and if the government announces that students can go back to their schools in the coming one month, students may go to their particular university but if this cannot happen, students may be obliged to start their education in the coming year.”
Ministry of Science and Higher Education and ethio telecom are working to start giving online educational courses to postgraduate students without internet charge.
Ministry of Education set temporary timetable for classes, exam
Ethiopian Embassy in Djibouti helping Ethiopians in need
Ethiopian Embassy in Djibouti announced that it is providing direct support for needy Ethiopian community to alleviate the challenges they face due to COVID 19.
The Embassy told Capital that it has mobilized finance from staffs at the mission and other sources to provide support for those in need.
Abdulaziz Mohammed, Ethiopia’s Ambassador to Djibouti, said since the outbreak was announced in Djibouti the embassy was engaged on awareness creation in different platform for the Ethiopian community based in the country.
“Besides that we have been working with different organization here (in Djibouti) to keep the safety of Ethiopian drivers who transport cargo from and to Djibouti, which is the main sea outlet for Ethiopia,” Abdulaziz told Capital.
To control the outbreak the government of Djibouti has lockdown the country that made Ethiopians; most of them are living in very poor condition, vulnerable. “To tackle the challenges on Ethiopian community we have been engaged on mobilizing finance from Ethiopians based in Djibouti and organizations to provide support,” the Ambassador says, adding “the mobilization also targeted the call from Ethiopian government to participate the Ethiopian community in the world to support the country to solve the same problem in Ethiopia.”
So far 4,000 Ethiopian community members are getting support via the embassy in two ways; direct cooked meal for those who are living at the street and monthly food rations for those that resides in shelters.
“We are working tirelessly to address those who need support,” Abdulaziz said. The support is delivered in seven sub cities, and different areas in Djibouti city like Balbala, Arhiba and PK 12.
Ambassador Abdulaziz appreciated the effort of the Ethiopian community that are giving priority for the situation than their works and engaged on the activity to support those who need support.
Djibouti is a corridor for illegal Ethiopian migrants that transfer to the Gulf nations.
The embassy in Djibouti said that that it is working with IOM to return migrants based on their willingness.
Abdulaziz said that there is no forced measure by the government of Djibouti to return Ethiopian migrants and refugees particularly in relation with coronavirus.
“Regarding the port service everything is going smoothly as the past,” he concluded.
Logistics company starts intermodal operation
MACCFA Freight Logistics announced that it will accelerate the intermodal operation it started recently as it has managed to import its third shipment this week under a new solution in a month’s time.
The company, which is one of the major logistics operators in the country, concluded the first intermodal solution few weeks back.
The first scheme end to end logistics service provided for Unilever Ethiopia is that the utilization of a full block train arrangement from Djibouti containers terminal (SGTD) to the Indode Railway station yard, located at the southeast outskirt of Addis Ababa.
The modern electric railway that connects the central part of Ethiopia with ports in Djibouti is operational for about two years, while mostly Ethiopian Shipping and Logistics Services Enterprise (ESLSE) is using the facility to transport cargos via the line to the dry port at Mojo, which is the facility that provides for multimodal operation that is a monopoly for ESLSE.
The line is also to some extent transporting bulk cargos like wheat and fertilizer that is mostly transported by the stated owned ESLSE.
Experts said that due to the stated reason above the private freight forwarders could not use the intermodal solution and transport cargos at Mojo.
Until recently most of the private logistics firms are using the railway system for export sector like products from industry parks.
Since Indode has become operational the private sector, who is uni-modal operator, has got a chance to transport cargos in the central Ethiopia by using the railway system under the intermodal scheme, which required to transport at least massive containerized cargos since the movers are leasing the full space at the railway. 
“Indode was available in the intermodal scheme and you have to fully contract the train and need to have at least 100 containers cargo at a time due to that the private sector activity in the modality is very limited,” Mulugeta Assefa, CEO of MACCFA said, “because of that you have to mobilize the cargos to transport at once.”
In these recent weeks very few companies developed their capacity and launch the scheme.
“Now we organized the volume and commence the transportation under intermodal solution, which allowed us to cease using trucks and transport huge amount of cargo at a time by rail,” the CEO said.
He added that the station yard at Indode Station is very small and due to that the cargo should relocate at the final destination within three days.
That means it should have mobilized ample trucks to transport the cargos from the yard after the accomplishment of customs clearing shortly.
Under intermodal solution MACCFA has achieved its third shipment on Thursday April 23.
“According to our plan we will undertake similar intermodal operation on a weekly base,” he added. 
Besides eco friendly benefit since the rail is electric, the intermodal operation has a benefit to cut the number of trucks assigned to transport containers that the process may take couple of weeks to deliver at the customer yard.
The intermodal operation only takes a maximum of four days, according to experts. At the same time the trucks will be idle since they are engaged on the internal distribution.
“In terms of security regarding theft and safety such kind of scheme has best value,” Mulugeta said.
“Even though the service is undertaken by MACCFA, who has partnership with the French logistics giant CMA CGM, the French company is one of the source for the volume,” the CEO said.
MACCFA signed a memorandum of understanding with CMA CGM, owned by CEVA Logistics, for the foreign company to take 49 percent stake from MACCFA.
Freighters International and CLS Logistics Services are the other two freight forwarding companies engaged on the intermodal operation so far.
Intermodal transportation is the use of two or more modes, or carriers, to transport goods (freight) from shipper to consignee.
International institutions shows interest in supporting Ethiopian Airlines
International financial institutions are eager to support Africa’s biggest airline, Ethiopian Airlines from the crises of the pandemic covid 19.
“Ethiopian airlines is a flag ship not only for Ethiopia but also for Africa considering this international financial bodies are becoming interested to support the airline” said Ahmed Shide, Minister of Finance in a press response for the question collected from media houses and journalists to the committee to tackle the coronavirus.
According to Ahmed, the World Bank, International Financial Corporation /IFC/ and African Development Bank are talking with the government to support the airline, “additional to the support of the financial institutions, the government will also give support based on the economic response plan to help the airline through this difficult times.”
Ethiopian Airlines has reported that it loses 550 million dollar in revenue from January up to April after the corona virus pandemic brought passenger traffic to a near-complete halt.
Despite the financial loss, the company’s CEO remains confident that the airline can keep flying, in part by increasing its cargo business.
Last week in a press briefing Tewolde G. mariam CEO of the airline acknowledged that the airline is in a serious financial crisis, but, Tweolde expressed his belief that Ethiopian Airlines will ride out of the current storm. He said that the company was cushioning the financial blow by finding new streams of income.
“We are now focusing on cargo. The cargo business is relatively doing well because urgently required medical supplies are needed all over the world from east to west, west to east, north, south and so on. We are also trying to convert some of our passenger aircraft to cargo,” said Tweolde.
“Cargo business and MRO are becoming the main business of the airline,” said Tewolde adding “even if the airline is losing in revenue, we do not expect any governmental support; the airline came up with a new strategy in response to the business slowdown.”
He also said the company has saved money by cutting back deeply on daily flights and suspending talks with Boeing and Airbus to replace older aircraft in its fleet.
However according to Ahmed, if the situation continues the airline will no longer sustain itself more than three months and other sectors depend on the airline will face economic difficulties, the government need to support the airline as a contributor to the overall economy.
According to Tewolde, the airlines has been in talks to defer lease payment on aircraft and it may seek deferrals on some payments of 2 billion dollar in debt.
“In relation with restrictions of international movements and trades several economic sectors of the country has been highly dented, including the tourism, hotel and tour operations” said Ahmed.
The airline has more than 16,ooo employees and according to the International Air Transport Association currently 1.1 million employees are supported by air transport and tourists arriving by air.
The supply chain is estimated to support 1.5 billion dollar of the GDP and spending by foreign tourists supports a further 2.61 billion dollar to the GDP totaling the sector contribute 4.1 billion dollars to the economy.
“Not only in Africa we are also serving the world, which we are operating in major trade lanes between Africa and Europe, Middle-east and Asia providing a convenient and reliable cargo service,” said the CEO. “We have recalibrated our cargo operations and networks in light of the current demand in air cargo business.”
The airline is expecting to be involved in a critical capacity in Africa’s pandemic response. On Monday it finished distributing the second batch of masks, testing kits, ventilators, and other supplies donated to African countries by Jack Ma Foundation. And last week the United Nations opened an aid transport hub in Addis Ababa that will rely on Ethiopian cargo jets to move supplies and aid workers across the continent.
