The major purpose of the study was to assess trends and determinants of enrollm ent, dropoutrnand gender parity in ABE in Mecha woreda. Employing survey design, data was collected pomrn58 Alternative Basic Education (ABE) facilitators, 12 ABE supervisors and a random sample ofrn180 ABE students in 20 learning centers. To supplement the data collected throughrnquestionnaire, qualitative data was collected through focus group discussions (which comprisedrn140 ABE Center Management Committee (CMC) members) and interview of 8 key informants.rnBoth quantitative and qualitative methods of data analysis have been employed. The resultrnindicated that gross enrollment, which stood at 894 in 2003104 was found to grow to 3296 inrn2007108, showing a relative growth of 268. 7 percent. The gross enrollment for boys and girls,rnwhich were only 458 and 436 in 2003104 grew to 1660 and 1636 in 2007108 demonstratingrngrowth rate of 362.4 and 375.2 percent respectively. Given that girls constitute 49.6 percent ofrnthe gross enrollment in level one, 49.5 percent in level two and 50.1 percent in level three,rngender disparity in the study area was found to be too narrow. Dropout rate, which stood at 15.4rnpercent in 2003104, was found to decline to 7.8 percent in 2007108. The dropout rate for boysrnand girls, which marked 15.9 and 14.9 percent in 2003104 declined to 8.1 and 7.5 percent inrn2007108 respectively. Dropout rate was found to be relatively high for boys than for girls. Therndependent variables, gross enrollment and dropout rate, were examined against variousrnexplanatory variables so as to identify determinants of gross enrollment and dropout rate in thernstudy area. Accordingly, parel1ls . level of awareness on the benefits of education, demand furrnchild labour, relationship between learning centers and the community and level of technicalrnsupport provided were found to be determinants of gross enrollment. The level of involvement inrnfamily work, employment prospect, relationship between learning centers and the comlllunity,rnsupport of parents, quality of education, flexibility of the program, adequacy of learningrnfacilities, support of filcilitators and absenteeism were found to be determinants of dropout.rnGiven that the numbers of women facilitators outnumber that of men and establishment ofrnlearning centers closer to villages where the community dwells, the two variables, namely,rngender of facilitators and distance to learning centers were not found to have statisticallyrnsignificant association with dropout in the study area.