The examination of an educational system at anyonernlevel can be made possible through a profound investigationrnof its development process, its implementation and itsrnultimate pertinence. In view of this, the purpose of thisrnstudy is to determine the extent of the Senior SecondaryrnLevel Education's relevance or irrelevance to the needs ofrnEthiopian rural and urban communities' with a particularrnfocus on communities of the former Illubabor AdministrativernRegion - presently, Jimma and Illubabor Zones of Oromia.rnTo achieve this purpose, five senior secondary schoolsrn(one from each AwrajaJ are purposively selected from therntotal of nineteen senior secondary schools found in thernregion. From these schools, seventy-two teachers and fourhundredrnand sixty-five students are randomly selected asrnrespondents. In addition, twenty-five communityrnrepresentatives are purposively selected from therncommuni ties where each school is located and interviewed.rnThe contents of eighteen text-books that are currently inrnuse in the Senior Secondary Schools are also analyzed.rnIn order to obtain the necessary da ta from thesernsources, both qualitative and quantitative researchrntechniques are employed . To this end, different datarngathering tools such as questionnaires, semi-structuredrninterviews, class-room observations, text-books contentrnanalysis and document studies are used. The data procuredrnthrough these instruments are tabulated, interpreted andrnanalysed.rnThe results indicate that the contents of the SeniorrnSecondary Level Education are quite relevant to serve thernneeds of the Ethiopian rural and urban communi ties inrngeneral. They consist of knowledge and practical skillsrnthat are closely related to the real needs, demands andrnproblems of both the rural and urban communities. On thernother hand, teachers' instructional performances arernobserved to be far removed from implementing them . Therngreater majority of the teachers observed are not seen tornmake any efforts to relate the contents of their lessonsrneither to the day-to - day and future lives of their studentsrnor to the overall lives of the communities.In general, the results show that the Education of thernSenor Secondary Level is well prepared at its developmentrnstage. However, due to the poor conditions of the schoolsrnand due to the poor instructional performances of thernmajority of teachers, it is poorly implemented at thernschools level. Moreover, as the study indicates, lack ofrnemployment for the graduates from this level is the majorrnfactor that casts shadow on the relevance of the educationrnof this level, for it is resulting in high rate of studentrndrop-out.