Salesian Presence in Ethiopia has a short history of hardly 42 years since its existence. The Salesians here arrived only in 1975. But today after about 4 decades, we have almost all the stages of formation completed within the country itself. Right now, we have four houses for aspirantates, one pre-novitiate, one novitiate and one post-novitiate. The students of Theology are sent either to Nairobi or Jerusalem and in some rare cases also to Italy. The Formation commission, with its coordinator Abba Isidoro, is regular in its meetings and does a close follow up of the formation process in the province. All the Aspirantates have the aspirantate in charge and they have certain common norms and policies for the recruitment.

Aspirantates - 4

Mekelle: Mekelle Aspirantate takes aspirants from grade 8 onwards and depending on the results of the students, they are given possibility of preparatory or technical training after completing the 10th grade.
Adwa: The Aspirantate of Adwa takes only boys who go for Technical training. The experience of boys who go for preparatory is under study. But so fare we have not started yet.
Zway: Here we have aspirants who join us after grade 10 and they continue the preparatory in our school at Zway.
Sodo: The Aspirantate in Sodo is still at its beginning stages. This house is intended mainly for late vocations, people who join us after their graduation or further studies.

Pre-Novitiate - 1

Mekanissa: The pre-novitiate house is at Bosco Children Mekanissa. Originally the pre-novitiate was at Don Bosco Mekanissa. But now since 2016, the pre-novitiate has been shifted to Mekanissa Bosco Children house. The pre-novices have their classes along with candidates of other congregations nearby. The pre-novitiate program is followed up by the pre-novitiate director.

Novitaite - 1

Debrezeit: The Novitaite in the province is only and is situated at Debrezeit, almost 50 km away from the capital city of Addis Abeba. The community is dedicated entirely for the formation of novices and it has no other apostolate other than the novitiate. The house also runs a small oratory with few women promotion activities.

Post-Novitiate - 1

Adigrat: The Post-novitiate house is situated at Adigrat in the Tigray region of the country on the north. The Post-novitiate formation is for two years and the students get a diploma in Philosophy from the Catholic Major Seminary of Adigrat Diocese. The classes of Philosophy are offered at the Major seminary in the morning hours and staff of the seminary are mainly from the diocesan clergy along with the participation of the Salesians and the Missionaries of Africa. In the afternoons courses like Pedagogy, Salesianity, Psychology etc are offered at our house. The house dedicates itself for the formation of the Post-novices and also runs a daily oratory with some promotional activities.