It is now about a century since modem education began in Ethiopia. However, the desire tornuniversalize primary education and equitable access remained a matter of great concern. Problemsrnof access, equity, relevance, quality and financial constraints are challenges that characterized thernEthiopian education system and the hope for UPE in Ethiopia still seems a distant. In spite of thernpledge to ensure the rights of all children to primary education; a great majority of children (aboutrn60 percent) are out of the primary school system.rnAgainst this background and recognizing the limitations of the formal schooling some NGOs haverninitiated an alternative primary education programs in recent years. The purpose of this study wasrnthus, to explore the main features and feasibility of these programs and see whether they can helprnto speed up UPE in the Ethiopian context.rnThe study has made a brief review of the literature and concepts behind alternative paths to UPE.rnThen methods of investigation was developed, administered and analyzed up on which findingsrnwere drawn.rnResults of the study showed the potential benefits of the alternative approaches and the untappedrnareas of partnerships and exploitable resources at the grass-roots . The main features of thernalternative, programs and the non-governmental approaches to primary education were found to bernacceptable and attractive at the grass-root level if cultivated and maintained properly. Low costrnsmall schools nearer to the home of children, flexible learning schedule, use of localrninstructors/paraprofessionals and greater community involvement have been found to increaserngirl's enrollment, minimize drop-out rates and was responsive to the opportunity costs of thernstudent's time. Results of student achievement in grade two on the three core subject areas werernfound to be positive in relative terms . Though the number of students who satisfied the agreedrnacceptable level of learnmg (75% score) were 46 percent almost about 90 percent of them havernscored a pass-mark (50%) . The obtained estimation results of the upper and lower confidencerninterval of the mean revealed that out of 100 similar samples taken from a similar population, aboutrn95% will have a mean value of 61 to 70 percent in language, 63 t073 percent in basic arithmeticrnand 72 to 76 percent in environmental science. The obtained result was significant at thernconfidence interval of 95% at p-value 0.05. Environmental science was the best subject performedrnby the majority of the students while language was the least performed subject area.