Higher Education

Strategy
Center
www.higher.edu.et

13 New Higher Education Institutions for

Ethiopia
Analysis and discussion of curriculum,
resource and organizational issues
Professor Kate Ashcroft

Research Assistants

Commissioned Researchers

David Evans

Bedada Mergo (Adama University, Nazareth)

Gashaw Mulatu

Haileleul Zelke (Adama University, Nazareth)

Frances Edwards

Mesfin Lemma (Debub University)

Ian Papworth

Solomon Hishe (Mekele University)

Tollera Negassa (Adama University, Nazareth)

Acknowledgements
I would like to acknowledge the contributions, help and advice that I have received in writing this
report1. I am particularly grateful for the support and the freedom allowed me by the Minster of
Education to think the unthinkable and propose novel solutions to the issues raised by the opening
of the 13 new HEIs.
I am also grateful to the contract researchers who produced excellent reports on which I could draw
for this study: Bedada Mergo, Haileleul Zelke and Tollera Negassa of Adama University, Nazareth;
Mesfin Lemma of Debub University and Solomon Hishe of Mekele University and research
assistants David Evans, Gashaw Mulatu, Frances Edwards and Ian Papworth who freely
volunteered their time and expertise on top of their other duties.
I would like to thank all those who gave long and detailed feedback on the early drafts of the
study. I am also grateful to Dr Lidia Brito for her inspiring leadership of the first regional
workshop; Dr Daniel Desta of Addis Ababa University for his work in organizing the national
conference; and Mieke Vogels of the Dutch Embassy for her unfailing practical and moral
support in this project.
I am also grateful for the financial support provided jointly by the donors through the
Education Pooled Funds for the background research and the national conference and from
NUFFIC, through CHEPS for the conference.
Kate Ashcroft

Please note that the full report can be found on http//www.higher.edu.et

Table of contents
List of abbreviations.......................................................................................................3
Executive summary........................................................................................................4
Introduction..................................................................................................................10
Main questions.....................................................................................................10
Objectives.............................................................................................................12
The methodology that informs the recommendations..........................................13
Chapter 1: Ethiopian higher education: challenges and opportunities.........................15
Ethiopias higher education system......................................................................15
The relationship of higher education to the rest of Ethiopias education sector. .17
The current Ethiopian development plan for higher education............................18
Donor concerns about the expansion...................................................................19
Chapter 2: International comparisons..........................................................................21
Trends in higher education across the world........................................................21
International experience of structures for a higher education system..................22
International experience of funding expanding systems......................................23
International experience of developing relevant research and curriculum..........24
Chapter 3: Regional demand........................................................................................25
Quality issues.......................................................................................................29
Areas of common and distinctive studies.............................................................32
Curriculum specialization....................................................................................34
Options for regional HEIs....................................................................................34
Areas for development or expansion in existing universities..............................44
Chapter 4: Curriculum, pedagogic principles and qualifications.................................46
Principles to underpin curriculum design.............................................................47
A model of the ideal graduate..............................................................................47
A curriculum to develop the graduates that Ethiopia needs.................................49
Research and consultancy....................................................................................52
Chapter 5: Resources....................................................................................................54
Finance.................................................................................................................54
Staff......................................................................................................................56
Other resources.....................................................................................................57
Conclusion....................................................................................................................58
Appendix 1: Main recommendations...........................................................................59
Appendix 2: References used in the study...................................................................68
Appendix 3: Interviews Conducted..............................................................................73
Appendix 4: List of those Participating in the Regional Consultative Workshops......75
Appendix 5: Summary of discussion agreed from each of the workshops..................76
Appendix 6: List of papers presented at the National Conference...............................86

List of abbreviations
AAU

Addis Ababa University

AIDS

Acquired immune deficiency syndrome

ADRC

Academic Development and Resource Center

ART

Anti-retroviral treatment

CHEPS

Center for Higher Education Policy Studies, University of Twente

DIF

World Bank Development Innovation Fund

ESDP

Education Sector Development Program

EQUIP

Education Quality Improvement Program

GDP

Gross domestic product

GER

Gross enrolment rate

HAPCO

National HIV/AIDS Prevention and Control Office

HEFCE

Higher Education Funding Council for England

HEI

Higher education institution

HESC

Higher Education Strategy Center

HESO

Higher Education Systems Overhaul

HERQA

Higher Education Relevance and Quality Agency

HICE

National Household Income, Consumption and Expenditure Survey

HIV

Human immuno deficiency virus

ICT

Information and Communication technology

MDGs

Millennium Development Goals

MoE

Ministry of Education

MoFED

Ministry of Finance and Economic Development

MPhil

Master of Philosophy

NGO

Non Governmental Organization

NUFFIC

Netherlands Organization for International Cooperation

QAA

Quality Assurance Agency

SDRPP Sustainable Development and Poverty Reduction Program

SSRs

Staff student ratios

TESO

Teacher Education Systems Overhaul

TVET

Technical and vocational education and training

Executive summary
This report contains the main findings and recommendations of a study conducted between
April and November 2005 into what should be the strategy with respect to the 13 new higher
education institutions (HEIs) to be opened in Ethiopia during 2005/6.

Main findings
The main findings of the study are as follows:
The Ethiopian Government has a vision of vastly increasing the numbers of students within
HEIs and increasing the numbers of universities and university colleges in the country. To
this end it intends to develop around 13 new university colleges in the longer term. This
vision is commendable most of the main regions and centers of population should have a
HEI in the longer term. On the other hand it is not possible to create a university or university
college from a field in a few months without devaluing the idea of a university and the
currency of a university education. This report addresses this dilemma: the need to expand
the numbers of HEIs and the numbers of students benefiting, while retaining quality and
institutions that at least approach international standards.
Ethiopias higher education has yet to develop as a system: the new HEIs should be part of a
set of interrelated and complementary institutions, each with a particular and different
function and goals within the system. The system needs mechanisms to develop a flourishing
professional and academic community: a functioning association of Public Higher Education
Institutions; subject associations; and professional groups of support managers in higher
education. Institutions should work together to agree how each will make a special
contribution and develop a distinctive curriculum appropriate for a particular region or for the
country as a whole. The new HEIs should offer demand driven subjects and interdisciplinary
programs integrating gender and HIV/AIDS; work experience and practice.
At present, Ethiopias higher education is focused almost exclusively in bachelor and higher
degrees, in comprehensive universities each offering a large number of comparatively small
programs. The new HEIs should be more specialist, each offering a few very large programs
and new 12+1 (higher education certificate) and 12+2 (associate degree) programs. It is
recommended that a new ladder of qualifications consistent with international norms be
established (by Proclamation if necessary) as follows:
12 + 1: Higher Education Certificate
12+2: Associate Degree
12+3: Bachelors Degree
Bachelors+1: Post Graduate Certificate
Bachelors+2: MA/MBA/MSc
Bachelors+3: MPhil
PhD
HEIs should be allowed to admit suitably qualified TVET students to higher education
diplomas/associate degrees.
In the short term, until the new qualifications framework is established, the new HEIs should
offer a Higher Education Diploma after two years of post grade 12 study.
The new HEIs at Dilla, Dire Dawa and Adama should be established from the outset as
university colleges (or in Adamas case as a university), able to offer and validate bachelors
degrees in selected subjects. The other new HEIs should be junior colleges as described in
Articles 4 and 20 of the Higher Education Proclamation of 2003. They will be affiliated to an

existing HEI for at least the first five years of their establishment (hereafter in this report,
these institutions will be termed affiliated colleges to make the relationship with the rest of
the sector clear). They should not be permitted to offer the final year of bachelors programs
until certain academic and quality conditions have been met in that subject: appropriate
instructor qualifications; experience of teaching and graduating students at associate degree
level; the proportion of ex-patriot staff; the establishment of academic regulations and
statutes; satisfactory HERQA assessment of programs; and research culture. Once these
conditions have been met, the college should be permitted to take students into the bachelor
program. Once they have graduated students in a degree program for at least three years; and
are offering education and training in different professions and programs (see Article19 of the
Proclamation for what is required of private higher education institutions), they would be
eligible to apply for university college status.
There should be formal linkages between the new HEIs, existing universities and TVET
institutions to share resources and staff as appropriate, manage quality assurance and to allow
credit accumulation and transfer between institutions and levels. There should be formal
representation in the governance and management of the new HEIs from national and local
authorities and business; local colleges and other regional universities, for example, places on
the Board, on advisory committees and on joint planning fora.
Recommendations for mission of the new HEIs
The recommendation is for the new HEIs to be much more specialist, all but a few focusing
on a limited range of subjects, offering programs at associated degree level, having large
specialist staff, resources and facilities and enrolling many hundreds of students on each of
the few programs offered. This will maximize economies of scale and the intensive use of
expensive resources, including scarce well qualified staff. This will ensure that the limited
number of PhD holders in each discipline are concentrated in one HEI and can ensure that the
subject is covered properly and all topics covered by the curriculum are informed by current
research.
It is recommended that the new HEIs should be established as follows:
Dire Dawa should become the National Womens University of Ethiopia (recruiting only
women students, but with some male staff) and undertake a broad range of courses with
curriculum, assessment and teaching methods designed to match female learning styles and
interests. It should undertake research into gender issues. In the first instance the program
offered should include entrepreneurship, business and management with Arabic for business
as one of the options and leadership and management for women. The institution should also
start programs in food technology and chemical engineering and in the longer term move on
to mechanical and electrical engineering. It should establish a design department that focuses
on industrial and aesthetic design, with a strong fine art component

Adama should become the National Pedagogic and Technical University specializing
in the training of instructors for technical and vocational education and training
(TVET) both at undergraduate and post graduate levels. It should undertake r esearch
into TVET related issues (e.g. Ethiopias labor needs, business consultancy needs, appropriate
TVET course structures, and how TVET students learn). It should train the trainers of field
workers in areas such as health, informal education and on-the-job trainers in office practice,
ICT, adult and continuing education. It should take responsibility for setting up and hosting a
National Association for Adult and Continuing Education, developing teaching materials and
undertaking research into adult education and pedagogy in the non-formal sector. It should
include entrepreneurship in all courses and close links with the world of work and develop
programs in technical studies and applied science.
At a later date Adama University might develop as a center for masters degree and PhD
training in higher education pedagogy for technical and scientific subjects.

The other new institutions should be affiliated to an existing university (generally their
nearest university) which will provide governance, quality assurance and curriculum support.
Dilla should become the University of Development and Indigenous Studies for Ethiopia
focused on agricultural sciences, health sciences, formal and non formal education and
integrated development studies. It should be in large part a distributed HEI with
considerable distance learning programs and local outposts. In the early stages, Dillas
priorities should be the establishment of programs in cultural and indigenous studies, teacher
education in civil education, computer science and business (including Swahili for business)
and a program for health educators.
Madda Walabu (Bale-Robe) should be established as an Affiliated Higher Education College
of Health and Community Studies. It should develop curricula that focus on Ethiopias social
and health needs. It should specialize in interdisciplinary team working and the interface
between the health and social structures of communities. The HEI should become a center of
excellence that can be an example to others and a source of information and training in how to
develop students skills and qualities such as: team leadership and working skills;
interpersonal skills; the ability to communicate well; interagency working; and knowledge
about HIV/AIDS. It should have an education faculty and undertake practically-based
research, including the effects of this program on the health of the community and methods of
intervention that work. Madda Walabu should develop some minor specialisms where these
relate closely to the region, such as tourism.
Sodo should develop as an Affiliated Higher Education College of Science and Health. It
should have particularly close links with the Open University of Ethiopia in order to become a
center of knowledge about the technical and pedagogic aspects of distance education in health
fields. It should start as a scientific and health college, focused on a few subjects in the first
instance, including natural resource science, rural science and family health.
Debre Markos, Mizan/Tepi and Semera should capitalize on their rural location, focused on a
few subjects in the first instance.
Mizan/Tepi should become an Affiliated Higher Education College of Technology and
Agriculture. The subjects offered should include teacher training in technical subjects, animal
health, dairy science and agro-economics. In the medium term courses could be developed in
product design and manufacturing based on agricultural products: leather working, paper
production and food processing.
Debre Markos should become an Affiliated Higher Education Health and Agriculture College.
Courses should include agriculture, the training of health officers and nurses. The HEI should
be equipped with up to date agricultural research facilities to develop research and courses on
agriculture which look at changing farming practices; plant and animal husbandry; pests and
plant diseases; agro chemical and organic approaches; and land/environmental management.
Since Benshangul will not have its own HEI within the region, Debra Markos should also
plan to meet the Benshangul regions most pressing higher level training needs.
Semera should become an Affiliated Higher Education Teachers and Agricultural College
offering pastoral agriculture, animal health and production and teacher training (especially
focused on the management of non formal and adult and basic education and training) . In the
longer term, if the HEI proves viable, courses in mineral exploitation (particularly salts and
sulphur) might add value to the local economy.
Jijiga is in a region with varied needs and therefore it is recommended it should be
established as an Affiliated General Higher Education College, focused on teacher training
including leaders for the non formal sector, engineering and mining and health studies. In the
longer term, if the college proves viable, courses could be introduced in public administration,
water engineering and arid agriculture.

There are however serious questions to be asked about the viability of Jijiga and Semera as
sites for HEIs at the present time and it is recommended that some reconsideration should
take place. If the decision is that it is not wise to go ahead with the HEI in Semera and Jijiga,
the new HEIs in Tigray and Oromia and Adama and Mekele Universities should be given the
mandate to seek to meet the most pressing of Somali and Afars regional higher level training
needs.

Wellega/Nekempte should start as an Affiliated General Higher Education College with

mining and water engineering, economics, accounting and forestry. At a later date programs
in forestry, agriculture and animal science may be developed. It should also look to
Gambellas needs for higher level training and seek to meet these as par as possible within the
curriculum.
Axum should develop as an Affiliated Higher Education General College with programs in
teacher training, health sciences and archeology. In the medium term it might develop tourism
courses, especially focused on quality issues and marketing.
Dessie should develop as an Affiliated Higher Education Industrial and Vocational College,
and starts by opening programs in industrial engineering and management. Later it should
develop into other infrastructure-related areas. In the medium term these might include
financial and insurance sectors; telecommunications; urban planning; and slum upgrading. In
the long term, courses should be developed linked to industrial infrastructure development.
Debre Birhan should develop as an Affiliated Higher Education College of Social and
Vocational Studies, starting with programs in the training of trainers and managers for adult
and continuing education in the formal and non formal sectors, and cooperate with the
National Pedagogic and Technical University in developing a National Association for Adult
and Continuing Education and researching what forms of teaching materials and adult and
continuing education produce the best social and economic returns. In addition, Debre Birhan
should introduce secondary teacher training. The college should also support local business
by developing economics and accounting. In the medium term, Debre Behan should open
courses in public administration.
Pedagogic and curriculum issues
The new HEIs need to produce questioning, creative, risk taking entrepreneurs. Graduates
will need to develop relevant knowledge that fits with the developmental stage of the country,
practice orientation and service commitment. To achieve this, appropriate pedagogy is
essential: instructor development must focus less on subject knowledge and more on
pedagogic skills and the world of work. The process of education must focus on group work,
performance assessment, self assessment and self motivation. Particular topics should be
covered, particularly entrepreneurialism (for example, the principles of developing a business
plan, principles of cash flow and project planning). Entrepreneurialism also requires
appropriate pedagogy: a can do philosophy from instructors, encouragement to students to
think outside of the box; and opportunities for initiative and experimentation. The
curriculum must emphasize work experience and work readiness and include work
placements. It should include new inter-disciplinary and professional qualification structures.
To allow for interdisciplinary study, sharing of modules between different programs and two
subject degrees and qualifications, the new HEIs should develop truly modular programs and
a credit accumulation and transfer system.
Academic Development and Resource Centers (ADCs) will need to be established as the
earliest priority in each of the new HEIs to train inexperienced and under qualified instructors,
provide emergency and then longer term training and development.

The new HEIs should develop graduates with self confidence, inquisitiveness and creativity.
This implies that the curriculum will not be overcrowded with content so students have time
to experiment with ideas, investigate their consequences and achieve depth in their studies.
The ethical aspects of each subject should be thematically discussed and considered and the
ethical responsibilities of students emphasized, both in their conduct as students and as future
employees and leaders/managers. Students must be encouraged to think about how they might
demonstrate their commitment to their country and how their studies might be used to benefit
others that are less fortunate.
Communication skills including ICT, verbal communication, different forms of writing and
presentation skills should be taught and assessed in all programs. Students should develop
abilities to work as part of a team in various roles. Students will need a variety of teaching
approaches, including group projects, community tasks and investigations, and project
reporting, many requiring the use of ICT. Active learning must be built into the planning of
every pedagogic process so students become efficient problem solvers. They need to become
self managers and independent learners supported by good learning resources. The
curriculum should include practical application, student self expression, creativity and risk
taking. Traditional assessment techniques should be combined with others: group work and
team assessment; peer assessment; self assessment; oral presentation; report writing; leaflet
and advertisement production; and competence-based skills assessment that test a wide range
of work-related skills and abilities.
The new HEIs will need to produce a workforce for all supervisory levels within industry at
regional and at national level. Some of these will be skilled at higher education certificate or
associate degree level, some (at a later date) at bachelors degree and some at post graduate
level.
Graduates need to be equipped to create their own jobs. This requires training in business
planning, ICT, obtaining micro finance and so on. Perhaps more importantly, it requires a
pedagogy that encourages students to take risks and to think both critically and creatively.
The Ethiopian economy needs more designers so products meet the needs of customers and
compete internationally. It also needs customer-oriented professionals to lead business and
services delivery; better communications; an improved financial infrastructure; and modern
management.
The starting point for curriculum development should be Ethiopias regional and national
situation, context and needs. Education should focus on aspects relevant to this context: for
example, the design of agricultural implements that are affordable and suitable for farmers
without special training, how to alleviate the disadvantages that women and girls suffer in
society and the economy; and ways to integrate HIV/ AIDS into the curriculum.

Research and consultancy

Research can be a key engine of economic development. The new HEIs should develop
specialized research agendas that meet the needs of the country in terms of quality and
economic relevance. This should be encouraged by Government by a system of results-based
funding. The new HEIs should also be expected to meet certain criteria with respect to
research activity and culture in order to acquire (or maintain) university college (or
university) status. They should focus on research that is important for the country: for
example the tendency towards decentralization; gender issues and HIV/AIDS .
Resource issues
The rapid expansion of the system may represent a threat to quality in both the existing and
new HEIs unless new sources of funding are found. In the longer term some of these may

come from income generation, but in the shorter and medium term students are likely to have
to contribute more. Options for this contribution include:

Higher rates of graduate tax

Charges for services such as food and lodging (perhaps supported by food vouchers
for the poorest)

Local recruitment (to save on lodging provision)

Admitting some fee-paying students over and above those allocated by Government.

There will be a shortage of well qualified staff for the expanded higher education system in
both the existing and the new HEIs. The new HEIs will need to maximize the productivity of
those better qualified staff that are available as follows:

Focusing mainly on one and two year higher education qualifications and a limited
number of programs

Paying postgraduate degree holders as master instructors on a higher salary scale to

design the programs, give the lead lectures, do lesson plans for seminars; and second
mark a proportion of assignments

Employing graduate assistants to undertake seminars and first marking of

assignments

(The existing universities) expanding post graduate training for instructors rapidly
and making it relevant for Ethiopias new HEIs.

Foreign study for the training of instructors in the new HEIs should not be widely used.
Rather, donor funds should be sought and used more effectively and intensively to develop
and improve in-country training, perhaps supported by some open and distance learning
materials from the developed world.
HEI managers will need training in key competencies that will enable them to develop and
manage HIV/AIDS programs in relation to curriculum development, pedagogy, student
services, employment practices and so on.
Where there is evidence of sufficient demand to justify the development of open learning
programs, ICT should be used as part of a multi-media approach to expand learning
opportunities. Virtual learning systems and their outcomes should be assessed using the same
standards as traditionally delivered programs. Where there is insufficient demand to justify
the costs of developing modules from scratch, the new HEIs should develop a partnership
with an international HEI. Where modules are used from HEIs outside of Ethiopia, the HEI
using them as part of its program must take responsibility for monitoring that they offer
sufficient quality and relevance. ICT should become a central tool in the administration and
management of the new HEIs.
A list of the main recommendations from this study may be found in Appendix 1.

Introduction
This report is compiled by the Higher Education Strategy Center (HESC). This Center is an
autonomous organization set up by Proclamation (351/2003) to advise the Government on HE
strategy and policy and the sectors contribution to targets and plans, especially the Education
Sector Development Plan (ESDP).
The draft vision of the Center is as follows:
The HESC seeks to be an effective and innovative centre for policy and strategy
formulation appropriate to the development of the Ethiopian higher education system
and appropriate to making the system a catalyst for the development of the country.
Its draft mission is as follows:
The mission of the HESC is to formulate a medium- and long-term vision and
strategically plan for the advancement of higher education so that the sector can be
responsive towards national development of Ethiopia and the improvement of the
livelihood of the population.
The Minister of Education requested the HESC to undertake a study to formulate advice to
the Government on strategy with respect to the new higher education institutions (HEIs) that
are to be established in the regions. At the time of the commission of this study, Adama
University was identified as one of the 13 new HEIs, although it was already an established
university college and therefore it has been included in the study.
The advice includes the curriculum that should be offered by each of the new HEIs; course,
validation and quality assurance and qualifications structures; and options as to their staffing
(academic and management), finance and organization.

Main questions
The main questions that the study seeks to address are as follows:
1. What value might the new HEIs add to the Governments strategy for the education
system and what should their relation be to the existing HEIs?
2. How should the new HEIs contribute to the regional economy/social infrastructure
and the long term plans for their development?
3. What skills and knowledge will the Ethiopian economy need in the future and how
might these be best developed?
4. How should pedagogy, instructor training and curriculum change to meet these
needs?
5. What should be the profile of the ideal graduate for the mid Twenty First Century?
6. What can the new HEIs learn from recent developments in higher education in other
countries?
7. What opportunities might exist for distributed learning in Ethiopia and how might
these opportunities be developed?
8. What are the staffing challenges in an expanded system and what forms of staff
training would support the higher education necessary for social and economic
reform?
9. What will be the most appropriate form of study, both in terms of content and mode
of delivery, course organization, course content and learning process to fit Ethiopias

10

development future and the Governments Sustainable Development and Poverty

Reduction Program?
10. What are the options for funding and other resources?
These questions are discussed in more detail below:
The starting point is the strategies and plans that presently exist within the country. For this
reason the research underpinning the study included exploring the Education Sector
Development Plan and the strategies that have been developed for the 13 new universities in
their early stages of development. It also looked at the Government plans for the expansion of
the existing public and private HEIs in order to determine the value new HEIs might add to
this system. In addressing this question the potential development of existing HEIs are
considered. The enquiry leads to the consideration of the potential that exists for new and
different relationships between institutions.
One of the most the most important questions relates to Ethiopias development plans. The
research underpinning this study explored the regional economy/social infrastructure and the
long term plans for their development in order to determine what sort of HE system would
support these plans. In looking at these matters, it should be emphasized that the HEIs
themselves will gradually develop a more thorough knowledge of regional conditions than a
study over a few months can possibly manage. The study therefore focuses on broad
principles for development and the processes by which curriculum and other HEI systems can
be made to be in tune with the needs of its region and of the country as a whole and support
the Governments Sustainable Development and Poverty Reduction Program.
The research that underpins the study included what the regions currently produce and how
value could be added to the present output. In exploring these issues, it is important to
recognize that adding value to existing products requires a range of diverse skills. The
Ethiopian economy is not market driven for a variety of reasons: there are too few designers
so products do not meet the needs of discerning national and international customers from the
point of view of quality, aesthetics or consistency; businesses are not customer-oriented and
do not have sufficiently well managed service delivery; communications are poor in terms of
technology and roads; the financial infrastructure is bureaucratic and unsupportive; internal
company management is authoritarian and does not use human and other resources to their
full potential; and finally, there is a lack of the kind of questioning, creative risk takers who
become entrepreneurs. Each of these problems has a potential contributory solution in the
way that higher education is managed and the curriculum and learning processes on offer.
The study enquires into what business people and others involved in economic and social
development feel is needed for the future and what sort of graduates might contribute to these
needs. There are clear indications that relevant knowledge that fits with the developmental
stage of the country, practice orientation, service commitment, creativity, questioning and
entrepreneurship are priorities. These qualities can only be developed in an education system
different from that presently offered by the HEIs in the country: pedagogy must change;
instructor skills must focus less on subject knowledge and more on pedagogic skills and the
world of work; and the process of education must focus on group work, performance
assessment, self assessment and self motivation.
It is important that the study does not just focus on what employers and others feel is needed
in graduates at the present time. It must also make the creative leap to the future to ask what
should be the model of the ideal graduate for the mid Twenty First Century and the skills and
knowledge that should be developed through the curriculum. Clues to the answer to these
questions lie in the creative thinking of those that were interviewed for this study and also in
the study of the recent economic history of countries that have developed from an agrarian
base more quickly than Ethiopia. The study examines how other HE systems supported this
development and what might Ethiopia learn from this history
During the course of the study it emerged that there is to be an Open University for Ethiopia,

11

based on the Addis Ababa College of Commerce. The development of this University is to be
supported by the UK Open University. This development led to the exploration of the
opportunities that might exist for distributed learning in Ethiopia and how might these
opportunities be developed in cooperation with the new HEIs.
The present higher education system is short of qualified staff. The new HEIs will need staff
trained and skilled in a variety of new areas. The study addresses the question of what are the
staffing challenges in an expanded system and the forms of staff training that would support
the higher education necessary for social and economic reform.
The new focus on entrepreneurship and relevance to Ethiopias social and economic
development implies that the traditional higher degree program presently offered in Ethiopia
and in other countries may not be the most appropriate form of study, both in terms of content
and mode of delivery. The study therefore explores other options as to the principles of course
organization, course content and learning process that might better fit Ethiopias development
future.
Finally the study explores the question of funding. It is evident from other parts of the world
that a massified system requires new sources of funding. There are a variety of options as to
these sources, each of which is explored. Funding from a source other than Government is
generally unpopular at the beginning, but it is a problem that must be grappled with. The
study therefore outlines the options that exist for new forms of income and how might these
be realized.
The HESC was not given the task of advising the Ministry on whether there should be 13 new
HEIs opened in the near future in Ethiopia, whether the timeframe is appropriate nor whether
the proposed locations are suitable. This study therefore does not directly address these issues.

Objectives
The main aim of the study was to undertake research and consultation and compile a report to
the Minister for Education to add value to the Governments strategy in relation to the 13 new
HEIs that form part of the third Education Sector Development Plan (ESDP3).
It was intended to provide practical and strategic advice as to the ways that the new HEIs
could contribute to development objectives and poverty reduction. This would include model
of curriculum and curriculum delivery that could be offered by the new HEIs and options as
to course, validation and quality assurance and qualifications structures. It was intended that
the study would suggest how to encourage and protect diversity of mission and outline
appropriate staff training (academic and management), finance and organization.
The intention is to achieve the following outcomes:
1

A report for the Minister for Education that is useful as a basis for long term practical
and strategic decision-making in relation to the 13 new HEIs to be opened in
Ethiopia.

A conference to disseminate the research and consultation and preliminary findings

and encourage blue skies thinking on strategic alternatives.

Dissemination of the research and consultation through the Higher Education Website
(www.higher.edu.et), and publication of the conference proceeding in a special
edition of The Ethiopian Journal of Higher Education.

Improved research capacity of HEI staff, more sophisticated policy conception in

regionally based officers involved in the project and more focus within HEIs on
Ethiopias economic and social development objectives.

12

The methodology that informs the recommendations

The study was completed between February and November 2005. It involved a variety of
strategies to collect and analyze information and options.
The study was informed by an extensive literature review to explore the approaches and
structures for expansion in other countries and how they have developed higher education
systems able to contribute to social and economic development. It drew on various
Government policies and strategies, including the Agricultural Led Development Strategy,
Industrial Development Strategy, Water Sector Strategy, Education Sector Development
Strategy and the Health Sector Strategy. A range of research and reports from Ethiopia and
across the world were considered and analyzed (see Appendix 2).
Interviews were held with around 50 representatives of ministries, donor organizations, NGOs
and employers during May and September 2005 (see Appendix 3). The interviewees were
asked about the long term strategy of their organization and the ways higher education might
support that strategy. They were asked to speculate upon the curriculum that might support
national and regional economy/social infrastructure and development and the barriers to
national and regional economic and social development. Each interviewee or group of
interviewees was asked what qualities and skills the ideal graduate would have acquired. Each
interviewee was asked supplementary questions as appropriate about their area of expertise
(for instance, HIV/AIDS organizations were asked how HEIs might support the fight against
the disease) and whether there were any other matters they wished to discuss. Each
interviewee was assured that he/she would not be identified with any particular viewpoint or
opinion in the report.
At a regional level a number of representatives from each regional authority where a new HEI
was planned were invited to a series of two day workshops held in July 2005 (see Appendix 4
for a list of participants). Those invited included representatives of the Education, Health,
Capacity Building, and Finance and Economic Development Bureaus, representatives of local
business or industry, heads of TVET colleges, heads of secondary schools and representatives
from HEIs in each region. The representation varied greatly from region to region, with some
being well represented and one region sending only two people. In almost all regions the
representation from the business community was disappointing and that from existing HEIs
was poor in most regions (Oromia being the exception).
These workshops included presentations by national and international experts on the present
context of higher education in Ethiopia, the Ministrys plans for the opening of the new HEIs,
higher education needs and options in terms of programs and institutional type, international
trends in higher education, the donor perspective on funding, what makes an effective system
of higher education and what stakeholders want from it. Between presentations there were
opportunities for participants to discuss the types of program and HEI that were needed in
their region. The participants were asked to represent their ideas visually using lego: a
building block system for children with bricks of different size and colour, a process
developed by Jon File of CHEPS during a similar exercise in Mozambique. Each size brick
represented a different level of priority, each colour a different subject group. Participants
used the bricks to represent one, two and three year programs and show linkages,
interdisciplinary programs and so on. The groups constructed programs and institutions
using the bricks, discussed and modified their constructions in the light of the presentations at
regular intervals during the workshop (see and Appendix 5 for summaries of the discussion
and conclusions of each workshop).
Five researchers in existing HEIs were contracted to undertake further studies of relevance to
the research. The reports that were produced each focused on a particular region or sub
region. They used a range of methodologies including focus groups, document analysis, re-

13

analysis of existing research data, interviews and questionnaires. The research was conducted
locally.
In addition, two research assistants were sent to visit four regions where there had been
limited employer representation at the regional workshop and/or where the contact research
was absent or lacking in detail. In Tigray, the research assistants held detailed interviews with
individuals and groups including representatives from NGOs, the Regional Education Bureau,
the Regional Planning Office, business people and employers. In Amhara, interviews took
place with representatives of the senior management of Bahar Dar University; a
representative of the Regional Planning Office; a management representative from the
Regional Education Bureau; a representative from a local Commercial Bank; and three
members of the Students Council. Because of difficulties in setting up interviews in Afar, the
only interviews that took place were with representatives of the local Planning Bureau and a
local NGO. This was particularly unfortunate because the Afar representation at the regional
workshop was very poor and contract research was not submitted on the Afar region.
The recommendations for the Semera College should be read in the context of this limited
data. Given the difficulty in securing regional involvement, the question must be asked as to
whether Afar is ready yet to support a HEI. If the decision is that it is not wise to go ahead
with the new HEI in Semera at the present time, the new HEI in Axum and Mekele University
should be given the mandate to seek to meet the most pressing of Afars regional higher level
training needs.
In Somali, appointments with senior staff in the Regional Planning Office and Regional
Bureau did not occur. Instead interviews took place with more junior staff. In addition,
interviews took place with an unqualified school teacher. Other interviews requested failed to
occur. The case for supplying more University places for the Somali region is weak. The
combined problems over law and order, security issues, lack of secondary school
completions, lack of infrastructure and weak local planning, calls into question whether, in
development terms, the Somali region is ready for a higher education institution.
Statistics provided by regional authorities during these visits were analyzed. The majority
were obtained from the Regional Planning Office. Special attention was given to the issue of
social or economic differences between the sites of the new Universities.
Presidents of existing HEIs were sent a summary of preliminary findings and conclusions
from the project and asked to comment upon them. Disappointingly, few did so. Those
identified as leading the development of each HEI were also emailed a draft of the report for
comment.
A national conference was held in October 2005 to look at broad strategic options for
Ethiopias higher education institutions and systems. Representatives from public and private
HEIs, the Ministry of Education and other stakeholders were invited to attend. International
experts from Ethiopia, the UK, The Netherlands and Mozambique gave keynote addresses.
Papers were subjected to a peer review process. Around 40 papers were presented from 8
Ethiopian HEIs, 4 international higher education establishments and 3 Government
organizations amongst others (a list of papers presented may be found in Appendix 6). There
was the opportunity during a special symposium of the conference to bring all stakeholders
together to discuss the 13 new HEIs project, the results of research so far and the national and
regional perspectives upon the options.
The results of all of these various investigations were analyzed and conclusions drawn as to
the outline strategy for the new higher education institutions in Ethiopia. These conclusions
are not merely a synthesis of the recurring opinions or themes, but are also the result of
collective creative thinking and reflection on the data and opinions collected.

14

Chapter 1: Ethiopian higher education: challenges and

opportunities
Ethiopias higher education system
This report addresses a central dilemma: the need to expand the numbers of HEIs and the
numbers of students benefiting, while retaining quality and institutions that at least approach
international standards. This chapter outlines some of the issues that are presented by the
higher education expansion and sets the context for the analysis of options in the rest of the
report.
The Ethiopian Government has the vision of vastly increasing the numbers of students within
HEIs and increasing the numbers of universities and university colleges in the country. It
intends to simultaneously expand the intake of the existing higher institutions and open 12
new university colleges within the same, short, timescale.
The Governments vision is commendable most of the main regions and centers of
population should have a HEI, but in the longer term. However, in the course of this research
we found no example of a country that had developed green field sites into universities or
university colleges offering bachelor qualifications on this scale nor within the short
timeframe envisaged by the Government at the present time.
This report suggests that the medium term strategy to achieve the vision needs to be
rethought. It has to be recognized that it is simply not possible to create a university or
university college from what on a green field site in a few months without devaluing the idea
of a university and the currency of a university education. Once the confidence of the public
and international community in the quality of bachelors graduates is compromised, the
reputation of the system will take generations to recover. In the meantime, Ethiopians will
suffer from the services of substandard public administrators, health workers and teachers.
Industry, agricultural development, and other sectors will not have the managers and leaders
they need. Public and private employers will not have confidence the bachelors level
qualification that applicants for jobs possess is of the expected standard: they will find that it
often equates to a much inferior standard. It is better to be honest and admit that newly
created institutions cannot produce bachelors level graduates from the very beginning, but in
their early years of existence, they can produce useful graduates at an intermediate level
between TVET and bachelors programs. This is a level of graduate that the research
underpinning this study indicates is badly needed within Ethiopia.
If a higher education system is defined as a set of interrelated institutions each with its own
function within the system, each with its own goals, each of which makes a particular
contribution to the functioning of the country, at the present time it could be said that Ethiopia
has a collection of institutions rather than a system. This is not an unusual situation in newly
developing countries: for example, Mozambique lacked a system before its reform of higher
education in 2001. In Ethiopia there is already some progress towards systematic
development: in 2003 the Ministry for Education (Section for Higher Education) developed a
coherent institutional and sectoral development program and a number of major initiatives
have been taken up in order to promote a systemic or holistic re-enforcement of the higher
education sector in Ethiopia.
However, there is still a lack of a systematic approach to higher education programs that is the
result of a deficiency of definition and differentiation amongst the individual higher education
institutions as to their particular mission and part to play in the countrys development. Many

15

of the present universities have remarkably similar programs of study, offer much the same
mix of qualifications, and undertake limited and non specialized research and consultancy.
This similarity appears to be growing rather than diminishing over time. One exception is
Addis Ababa University (AAU) which offers a wider set of programs, especially at post
graduate level and gives some assistance to other universities in matters such as curriculum
development. However, AAU has yet to rise fully to the challenge represented by its place as
the premier university in Ethiopia: for example, it has not fully responded to the Higher
Education Systems Overhaul (HESO) report and the Manual for Change: its press is not
commissioning text books and other materials and supporting teams of authors from other
HEIs to produce them; it is just starting to rethink the post graduate training that is demanded
by the new pedagogies in higher education institutions; and it is slow to take up the challenge
of hosting the National Pedagogic Resource Center as a lead support institution in the country.
The kinds of attitude within HEIs that would characterize and underpin a true system are also
absent. As an example of this, two drafts of this report were sent to the existing universities
and to one of the sector support units with a request for comment. In a mature system, senior
staff in the universities would see it as their duty and in their interest to influence the direction
of the system. For example in the UK, such a strategic document would be discussed at the
Senate level (or in one of it subcommittees) and a considered response would be sent by
nearly every university. University committees expect to deal with and discuss documents of
this nature every couple of months and universities have the machinery for processing such
reports and formulating and communicating their responses. In this way, most senior
university staff would be involved in and informed about national policy and national strategy
and policy would be better informed to the benefit of the country. It appears that in Ethiopia,
senior HEI managers do not see this as part of their duty and are content for themselves and
their staff to exist as relatively isolated islands.
The lack of a higher education system in Ethiopia is also a result of the lack of mechanisms
for professional and academic community. The Presidents of the existing higher education
institutions have yet to make a success of the Association of Public Higher Education
Institutions. Again, in a mature system, one would expect the Public Universities Association
to have discussed the drafts of the report and to have formulated a response. There are few
functioning subject associations in which the subject content and pedagogy, research and
knowledge transfer opportunities in Ethiopia can be discussed. There are no higher education
professional groups for the various support managers in higher education such as Finance
Directors, and Heads of Learning and Research Centers. Without such associations, higher
education institutions will remain isolated islands, unable to cooperate and learn from each
other and unable to plan how each will make its own unique contribution to the development
needs of Ethiopia. Where institutions do get together, far from working out how each will
make a special contribution, more often the tendency has been to work on a common
curriculum. This increases the mission drift that is leading to all HEIs looking essentially the
same, a lack of innovation and a conservatism that expresses itself in a tendency to copy
models of curriculum from AAU, the USA or Europe rather than looking at what would be
particularly appropriate for a particular region or for the country as a whole. It also leads to an
overcrowded curriculum, since members of groups developing common curricula will
generally wish to add topics and seldom agree to delete anything that is already here. Such
overcrowding is inimical to problems solving and practical approaches. Where there are too
many topics, they must be covered by chalk and talk methods and at a superficial level that
discourages creativity and real-life application.
This is not to say that there has not been considerable development within higher education in
Ethiopia. Ethiopias higher education system has grown in the last decade, from two
universities, to eight in 2004 and will soon expand to 22 with the opening of 13 new higher
education institutions and one Open University.

16

Higher education enrolment has expanded rapidly from 9,067 for both diploma and degree
students in HEIs in 19996/7 to 31,997 in degree programs alone in 2004/5. However,
Ethiopias gross enrolment figure remains low by world standards at 1.5%.
There have been improvements in the efficiency of HEIs during the expansion period. Staff
student ratios have moved from 1:8 in 1995 (EC) to 1:12 today, though this is still low by
international standards. It is unclear however that staff have been trained in methods to
maintain this cost effectiveness without loss of academic quality. Neither are the facilities,
books and equipment that are needed to sustain simultaneous improvements in staff efficiency
and quality in place.

The relationship of higher education to the rest of Ethiopias

education sector
The World Bank reports that Ethiopia has an illiteracy rate of 60%, primary school
completion rates of 51% and 36% respectively for Grades 5 and 8; Ethiopia lacks an adequate
human resource base on which to build its poverty reduction strategy.
Despite its problems, Ethiopia is making progress. Enrollments in Grades 1-12 rose at about
9% a year between 1992-93 and 2001-02. In 2003/4, the gross enrollment of girls and boys in
the first cycle secondary education was 15.9% and 28.2% respectively with a total gross
enrollment rate of 22.1%. The enrolment in the 10-12 grade pre-HEI program stands at about
2.3%. At the same time, around 3.4% of the age group is enrolled in Technical and Vocational
Education and Training programs (post grade 10). In post-secondary education, enrollments
rose from around 18,000 in 1990-91 to 101,729 in 2002-03 in public institutions (residential
and evening students combined), but less than 2% of each age cohort is currently enrolled in
post-secondary education. Government plans a ten-fold increase in public TVET over four
years at a capital cost of USD 210 million for the construction of 71 new TVET facilities and
five colleges. The private sector is also encouraged to expand TVET provision.
There is a shortage of university educated leaders and staff in teaching positions at the
secondary and university level. The percentage of qualified teachers at secondary level grades
9-12 was only 44.4% in 2003/04. Pressure to expand secondary education is building as a
rising percentage of the age cohort completes primary education (up 3% in the past three
years). This growth has a knock-on effect on the demand for higher education.
All of these developments require a rapid response by the higher education sector if it is to
supply the trained labor force to staff this expansion, both as teachers and administrators.
Furthermore the expansion of TVET and secondary education may be expected to fuel the
demand for higher education.
Higher Education in a developing country cannot be an end in itself: it must meet
development needs. In a context of competing pressures on the education budget it must
represent value for money when compared with other education spending options. At present,
Ethiopias public higher education is focused exclusively on bachelor and higher degrees, in
comprehensive universities each offering a large number of comparatively small programs.
This makes it relatively expensive. It costs over 80 times as much each year to educate a
university student as to educate a primary age child. With so many of Ethiopias children
remaining uneducated even to primary level, this means that an expansion of higher education
can only be justified if it becomes both more cost effective and more directly relevant to the
countrys poverty reduction strategy. This requires a radical rethink about the forms of higher
education that will meet the needs of the country in term of qualification type, subject mix
and forms of learning and organization that will allow more value to be obtained from the
same resources.
The proposed higher education expansion is expected to take 25% of education funding in
Ethiopia. This is very high by international standards and means that without additional donor

17

funding, the expansion must represent an opportunity cost to the rest of education and to the
public sector as a whole. The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are the top priority for
funding. In terms of education, these focus on the primary sector. Higher education is relevant
to donor priorities mainly in as much as it helps to achieve these goals. Since primary teacher
training is outside of the higher education sector, a link is not self evident between higher
education and education MGDs. This implies that if the expansion of higher education is to be
assisted by donors, the plans will need to directly relate to the achievement of MDGs, for
example, through the training of teachers.
If the increased share of the education budget going to higher education (20% from 25%) is to
be a temporary blip necessary to expand the system, there needs to be a realistic strategy to
develop other streams of funding and cheaper forms of higher education. Income generation,
apart from that derived from charges to students, is unlikely to amount to a large proportion of
funding within a short period. This implies that other strategies are needed.

The current Ethiopian development plan for higher education

Ethiopia is committed to meeting the MDGs. These goals are considered important because
they complement the Government's own Sustainable Development and Poverty Reduction
Program (SDRPP). This is a Government policy statement on national economic
development strategy and therefore an important reference point for choosing priorities for
higher education capacity building.
The MDGs were established in 1990 and the Government has based its plans on their
achievement. It has determined that education, including higher education, must take an
active part in this achievement. The MDGs with most relevance to the higher education
sectors mission are as follows:

Integrate the principles of sustainable development into country policies and

programs and reverse the loss of environmental resources
Develop further an open, rule-based, predictable, nondiscriminatory trading and
financial system (includes a commitment to good governance, development, and
poverty reductionboth nationally and internationally)
Develop and implement strategies for decent and productive work for youth
Eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondary education preferably by 2005
and in all levels of education no later than 2015

By 2015:

Halve the proportion of people whose income is less than $1 a day

Halve the proportion of people who suffer from hunger
Ensure that children everywhere, boys and girls alike, will be able to complete a full
course of primary schooling
Reduce by two-thirds the under-five mortality rate
Reduce by three-quarters the maternal mortality ratio
Have halted and begun to reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS
Have halted and begun to reverse the incidence of malaria and other major diseases
Halve the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and
basic sanitation

By 2020

Have achieved a significant improvement in the lives of at least 100 million slum
dwellers

The recommendations in this document relate in part to how the new HEIs can contribute to
the achievement of the MDGs.

18

The Education Development Sector Plan 3 (ESDP3) states that the Government will establish
13 new HEIs. The intake to Government HEIs is expected to reach 111,000 for undergraduate
and 26,000 for post graduate students during the planning period to 2010/11. It is intended
that private HEI intake capacity will increase to 45,000. The present gap between the postgraduate enrollment targets mentioned in ESDP III and current numbers is therefore large.
The plan is to open new fields of study based on demand and to open more distance learning
programs, based on an improved ICT infrastructure. In order for this to be successful,
assessment will be needed as to the nature of the demand for graduates, the skills and qualities
they should possess and the subjects that they should study. This report goes some way to
answering these questions in broad terms, but it does not recommend central control of the
curriculum: each HEI will need to continuously assess the needs of its region in order to
update and improve its subject and qualification mix and the forms of curriculum and
pedagogy that it offers.
ESDP3 recognizes that there will be a shortage of teachers for the new HEIs and envisages an
influx of ex-patriot teachers to fill the gap combined with an increased postgraduate training
provision to enable more Ethiopian instructors to be employed in the longer term. The
sustainability of this strategy depends upon the forms of training and staff organization that
are developed for Ethiopian academics. This report makes recommendations as to these
matters.
With respect to the financial sustainability of the new HEIs, this depends in part upon the
income generation capacities, the contribution that students make to their own costs and the
efficiencies that the HEIs introduce. The report addresses these matters, but it will be for each
HEI to find out and stimulate the demand for full-cost training, research and consultancy in its
region and to develop programs that meet these needs and to look for opportunities to
privatize various of its provisions.
ESDP3 makes the issues of HIV/AIDS and gender central to the work of all sectors of
education. These issues must be fully addressed in the organization, curriculum and values of
the new HEIs. The report makes recommendations with respect to these issues and also to
other equity issues: the meeting of special educational needs and the needs of pastoralist and
semi agricultural communities.
The economic rate of return to AIDS prevention within a university setting is particularly
high. A few years ago, a World Bank economist calculated an extremely high economic rate
of return to investments in AIDS prevention within the Nigeria university system,
assuming that they reduced the mortality rate for staff and students by just 5%. Such a
reduction will help to guarantee the investment being made by the Government in higher
education; reduce the risk that the country's development fails to be triggered by higher
education expansion; and the increase resource efficiency by maximizing the number of
graduates per unit of Government investment.

Donor concerns about the expansion

The donor community has expressed a range of concerns about the expansion of higher
education. Their anxieties are based on legitimate interests and are the result of experience
across the world. They should be taken seriously, not only because Ethiopias higher
education system would be enriched by donor support, nor because a loss of faith by donors
in the higher education strategy must have negative consequences for their confidence in the
strategy for the entire education sector and Ethiopias reputation for governance capacity, but
also because donors do not lightly disagree with a countrys strategy and meeting their
concerns will represent real challenges that should be faced squarely.
The first concern is the large share of higher education that will come from the education
budget: this share is now 20 %, the plan is to increase it to 25 % - a very large proportion by

19

international standards. The donors see this as an opportunity cost for the rest of the education
sector and a threat to the achievement of development goals.
The donors are also concerned about the pace of growth of higher education graduates and
whether the output will match the growth of demand for highly qualified labour. Except in the
public sector, they are worried that the expansion has not been planned to synchronize with
the labour market and so to graduates may not find jobs. Graduate unemployment is not only
a waste of precious resources but can also be a source of civil unrest.
There are also worries about whether the pace of growth of higher education will be
manageable in terms of staff and administration. Existing universities already experience
shortages of qualified instructors, managers and administrators. The donors believe that their
expansion alone will mop up the available output even from an expanded post graduate
system. They do not see that the recent record of expanding post graduate programs justifies
the optimism about how many post graduates may be produced in the future. There is also a
danger that aggressive recruitment to the new HEIs may denude secondary schools, TVET
colleges and HEIs of staff and managers. In addition, the donors are not convinced that
extensive recruitment from abroad is either sustainable (it is very expensive) or desirable for
the creation of a quality system (staff will come for relatively short periods and take time to
understand the new context).
Donors might be willing to support an expanded higher education system under certain
conditions but this requires good arguments that support the contention that the higher
education offered by the new HEI will actually benefit the poor and the development of the
country, is of a realistic nature and is not overly focused on bachelor and masters programs.
This link requires new and more innovative forms of higher education. They will also require
realism in terms of staffing possibilities and strategies, financing options and flexibility in the
lengths and types of programs.
Flexible options should not be considered just because donors may see them as desirable, but
because without a strategy for the new HEIs grounded in reality and sensitivity to the fact that
at least some of the assumptions about time, resources, growth and capacity may need to be
modified, the strategy is likely to have unexpected and undesirable consequences. Already
some adjustments are needed too may applicants for the MA programs on offer to support
the new HEIs come from other sectors of education, there were delays in signing the building
contract, the quality of foreign applicants for management positions has not been as strong as
hoped by some.
The points above are cast largely as donor concerns but they go beyond this. Issues of
quality decline in the midst of growth, sustainable financing, graduate unemployment, are
universal concerns that must be confronted by policymakers everywhere . This report goes
some way in presenting sustainable solutions to these concerns.

20

Chapter 2: International comparisons

It is important that Ethiopia takes note of trends from across the world, not to slavishly follow
them, but to understand the pressures that have caused them, the similarities and differences
in the nature of these pressures and the Ethiopian context and the successes and failures of
innovations and changes in other countries. This chapter explores these trends and identifies
some strategies for the Ethiopian higher education system.

Trends in higher education across the world

Altbach and Davis (1999) note that foremost amongst the global trends is the move from an
elite to a mass system (and, they claim, to universal access). Across Africa access is generally
low and fails to meet student demand and societal needs. There has been as a consequence a
great expansion in the higher education sector. This has not necessarily been matched by an
increase in Government resources. The massification of higher education across the world has
led to a trend towards users contributing towards the cost of their instruction. This has been
rationalized by the fact that the benefit is, in part, to the individual.
Another common trend is the severe financial difficulties of HEIs and deterioration in
conditions of study and research as enrolments rise faster than income. A move away from
tenure towards part-time employment of academic staff is common. This deterioration is
apparent in Sub Saharan Africa. Staff student ratios (SSRs), academic salaries and morale
have deteriorated. Perhaps in part as a consequence of higher fees and poorer services in
public HEIs, the privatization of higher education is a world wide trend. In many parts of the
world this sector grows faster than the public sector.
There is increasing emphasis world-wide on accountability. This accountability centers on
academic productivity and funding. For example, formula funding allows for greater
institutional autonomy, but also provides for financial penalties if certain targets (usually set
by Government) are not met. Quality assessment systems often locate the responsibility for
quality assurance with the institution, but provide for punitive sanctions if auditing uncovers
institutional weaknesses. HEIs are frequently provided with devolved budgets, but their
Boards and Executives must cope with the consequences of over-spending or over optimistic
strategic planning and cannot rely on Government to bail them out. HEIs as a consequence
have become more managerial and administration more professionalized. In Ethiopia, the
Higher Education Proclamation provides HEIs with a large degree of autonomy, but also
creates the mechanisms for ensuring accountability.
HEIs have become more diversified with new types of HEIs emerging (specialist colleges,
junior colleges, affiliated colleges, polytechnics, post graduate institutions and so on, as well
as universities). Universities serve more diverse groups. There is a common trend of large
increases in the supply and demand for post graduate education (especially part-time
provision) to support the upskilling and the life long learning needs of the workforce.
Higher education across the world faces some common problems. The transition from study
to work is weak. There is too little discussion between business leaders and educators. The
articulation tends to be better in professional areas than arts and sciences. Some countries are
experimenting with apprenticeship models and community-based colleges.
Distance and open learning have been enabled by ICT. Quality and accreditation systems
have not necessarily kept up and in many cases are becoming problematic. ICT also impacts
on study and teaching in courses delivered to traditional students in HEIs, but there are
problems of costs and of understanding how best to use it to support learning well. Some open
learning initiatives (for example the E-University in the UK) have failed to live up to

21

expectations leading to the waste of large amounts of money. There has been a tendency to
underestimate the great economies of scale before ICT-based open learning becomes viable.
The international mobility of students is contributing to the increasing problem of brain drain
from the poorest countries to the richest ones.
Gender, class, rural and ethnic access remain problems especially in the developing world.

International experience of structures for a higher education

system
Expansion is a common feature of higher education systems in countries that have developed
faster than Ethiopia. This expansion has frequently occurred through the development of new
forms of HEIs that are cheaper to run than traditional universities and through new, post grade
12 qualification structures that allow one and two year programs to lead to nationally
recognized higher education qualifications. These developments have made expansion more
affordable.
Thorn et al (2004) note that the Chilean tertiary education system is comprised by three types
of institutions: Universities offer undergraduate first-degree and postgraduate programs.
Professional institutes deliver four-year programs and are authorized to award professional
certificates in many fields. Technical Training Centers offer two-year programs which lead to
a Higher Technical Level Certificate. Higher education institutions are subjected to a statuary
regime according to their location in one out of four categories; full autonomy, accredited,
examined and supervised.
Similarly, the Indian higher education system includes universities, affiliated colleges and
autonomous colleges. Most of the universities are affiliating institutions, which prescribe the
course of study to the affiliated colleges, hold examinations and award degrees, while the
colleges undertake the instruction. In addition there are autonomous colleges, where the
degree continues to be awarded by the University, but the colleges develop and propose new
courses of study to the university for approval and are fully responsible for conduct of
examination.
In common with many other parts of the world, in India diploma courses are available at the
undergraduate (post grade 12) and postgraduate level as well as degrees. At the undergraduate
level, they vary between one to three years in length; postgraduate diplomas are normally
awarded after one year's study. A pre-doctoral program Master of Philosophy (MPhil) is taken
after completion of the Master's Degree. This can be either completely research based or can
include course work as well. PhD is awarded two year after the MPhil or three years after the
Master's degree.
Uganda also has a two tier higher education system; universities and polytechnics and tries to
develop centers of excellence in both types of HEI that fulfill their mission particularly well.
South Africa is planning the introduction of a two-year associate degree.
After twelve years of schooling, UK HEIs offer courses leading to one year higher education
certificates, two year foundation degrees and three year bachelor programs. Post graduate
qualifications include PG Certificates, PG Diplomas as well as masters programs, MPhil and
PhD. Recently taught doctorates have been introduced (e.g. the EdD in education).
It is worth noting the worldwide trend in this direction as exemplified by the major
harmonization undertaking of the Bologna Process. If Ethiopia was to follow suit it would
need to be clear how qualifications will be structured, how articulation will occur and whether
there will be outcomes of equivalence to years one and two of bachelors programs as well as
articulation with TVET qualifications. Such a system requires a flexible inter-institutional
recognition of qualifications, a nationally agreed policy which aims at more flexibility,
portability, transfer of credits, mobility and multiple entry and exit points and that dovetails

22

with international qualification frameworks. Benchmarking is a pre-requisite for such a

system: it provides agreed mutually developed criteria and outcomes on an inter-institutional,
inter-program basis. If achievement of these benchmarks is assessed by HERQA, receiving
HEIs will be able to have confidence that a student entering year three of a bachelor degree
after two years of study at another HEI will have achieved a necessary standard.
These more diverse and differentiated institutional and qualifications frameworks mean that
HEIs are able to respond more flexibly to labor force requirements and the local context.
In the Ethiopian system there are a series of gaps in the qualification structure that are being
eliminated in much of the rest of the world. These gaps mean that the in-service opportunities
for updating and upgrading qualifications are fewer for the workforce, and employers do not
have the choice of candidates for posts with the intermediate qualifications that are needed for
many roles. The pyramid of qualifications is not balanced. This means that the country pays
for higher levels of, and longer training, where shorter programs may be adequate. The gaps
in the qualification structure are conceptualized in the diagram below. The creation of 13 new
HEIs provides a unique opportunity to develop new and innovative course structures that do
not threaten or disrupt present programs.
The Present Qualification Pyramid in Ethiopia
Gaps

MA/MSc+1 absent

Present System

PhD (MSc + 3)
MA/MSc

BA/BSc +1 absent

(BA/BSc + 2)
BA/BSc (12+3)

12+1 & 12+2

absent
Grade 12

International experience of funding expanding systems

Johnstone and Marcucci (2003) note that much of the world is moving towards cost sharing
by parents and/or students through fees, graduate tax and charging for services such as food
and lodging. If it is to be acceptable to the stakeholders, cost sharing income must be in
addition to previous levels of grant so that facilities and standards improve and the principal
beneficiaries are seen to be students. This requires HEIs to demonstrate a decreasing share
being allocated to administration and increases in the share and the amounts being allocated
to support learning.

23

It appears that the private reward to graduates from higher education through higher salaries
is considerable, even in greatly expanded systems. However, as Brennan, (2004) points out,
the benefits that on average accrue, may not apply to all graduates studying all subjects.
Similarly, employers assume that graduates with certain subject backgrounds will be more
productive than graduates from other disciplines or non graduates, but few keep records to
test whether this is indeed the case.
It is possible to introduce other means of generating income from teaching by starting in a
small way. Mayanja (2001) describes how Makerere University started by admitting a few fee
paying students over and above those allocated by Government. It went on to set up special
courses and groups for these students. The scheme worked in part because faculty staff were
given a say in how the income should be spent and they could see that less than 40% went to
central administration: the rest was spent in the faculty.

International experience of developing relevant research and

curriculum
Teferra (2001) points out that the developing world relies heavily on knowledge developed
and disseminated by the north. This creates problems of relevance to the African context and
access (mainly because of the expense of journal subscriptions). It would seem there is a need
for a donor HEI partnership to develop capacity in HEIs to generate and package local
knowledge. This requires publishing houses to be established and research editors and
facilitators to be employed.
With respect to the training of academic staff through post graduate study abroad, Altbach,
(2003) notes that there is little systematic researched to see how it benefits the receiving
country (predominately in the developed world) vis a vis the sending country (generally a
much poorer country). It seems likely that such arrangements at post graduate level increase
brain drain, create new knowledge of use to and within the knowledge and practice paradigms
of the developed world rather than Africa, and lead to an export of donor funds that could
have been much more effectively and intensively utilized in the African country.
In various countries, results-based funding has been introduced for research so that HEIs are
rewarded for the volume and quality of their output. In countries such as the UK, Australia
and Hong Kong this seems to have increased the research productivity of the higher education
sector. Increasingly, the link between research and development is becoming apparent and
profitable for higher education in such countries, many generating considerable income from
consultancies to business and industry, patents on products and processes and spin off
companies exploiting knowledge generated by the university. This makes money for the
institution, but also becomes an engine for economic development in the region and country
as a whole (see for example, HEFCE: 2005)

24

Chapter 3: Regional demand

There is always a balance to be struck as to the balance between regional and national needs
when it comes to the development of a higher education system. Some, mainly postgraduate
institutions will focus almost exclusively on national needs. Others, mainly comprehensive
bachelors institutions with some research will seek a more even balance between local and
national needs within their programs. Others, especially those focused on more specialist
programs and with a teaching-only or mainly teaching mission, will be more focused on the
regional context. It is expected that most of the new HEIs will fall into this latter category.
Ethiopia is a heterogeneous society, incorporating huge diversity. In the past, insufficient
account was taken of this. Each region has very different production systems, particularly the
highland regions from the lowland regions. If the education system, especially the proposed
new HEIs, are to offer real support, they will need to respond to the particular area they are
serving and consider afresh the appropriate types of education they should offer. There are
already some moves in this direction in Ethiopia. For example, Mekelle University has been
trying (in its strategic plan and some World Bank Development Innovation Fund proposals) to
be more responsive to their particular area. The new HEIs could investigate progress with
these initiatives and seek to learn from their successes and problems.
There is a real danger of uncritically following the traditional patterns and curricula
established by the existing universities such as Addis Ababa or taking curricula from abroad.
A rigorous needs analysis is necessary first so each HEI considers such questions as:

How can the people in a particular area best benefit from these educational opportunities?
What disciplines and areas of study should be introduced?

An example of this is education that really benefits that rural and pastoral population. There is
a need for the kinds of education which would support the positive development of existing
community patterns. Higher education will be needed, but much of it might not be within the
conventional formal system. Rather, it should be community education, closely related to the
environmental context.
Ethiopia cannot afford and does not appear to need more comprehensive universities that
combine both research and teaching missions. Comprehensive universities tend to have
smaller programs than specialist ones because of the need to cover a wide range of subjects.
They must employ many expensive and hard-to-recruit staff with post graduate qualifications,
they have to have a wide range of expensive and specialist facilities and their libraries must
cover many subjects. On the other hand, specialist institutions focused on teaching only sub
degree programs will be around half as expensive per student as traditional universities, and
can manage with a smaller percentage of staff educated to post graduate level.
Three regional workshops were held in Addis Ababa with representatives of all the regions
where new HEIs are to be located to discuss the nature of regional demand for higher
education and what forms of education would satisfy it. Certain common themes emerged
from the workshops. These included issues that should be tackled by new HEIs. The regional
representatives overwhelmingly agreed that there was a need for new, flexible and innovative
programs and new areas of study demanded by the society. Such courses would not repeat the
programs of the existing HEIs but would cover new subjects and interdisciplinary programs.
Gender and HIV/AIDS must be important themes in curriculum and employment policy.
Graduates should be provided with opportunities to develop practical competences. This
implies a move away from academic programs to ones that are more practically oriented
with strong links with the productive work sectors and employers. Delegates hoped for
greater diversity and differentiation in the HE system. There was strong support for quality
and other systems that ensured integrity and ethical behavior on behalf of managers and
instructors.

25

Discussion centered on the support and management needed from the Ministry of Education
for the establishment of new HEIs in the region. Delegates noted the desirability of each HEI
developing one or more areas of specialization to become a center of excellence, not
necessarily for research, but perhaps for short term and sub degree training and consultancy.
They all saw articulation between TVET and higher education as a priority and most agreed
there is a strong need for new qualifications at a higher level than TVET qualifications, but
not so demanding as a bachelors degree (12 years + 1 year and 12 + 2 years or 10+3+1 year
and 10+3+2 years).
The workshops each noted the lack of a ladder of opportunity for students and a gap at
between grade 12 and 12+3 with no intermediate qualifications. They noted that a ladder of
opportunity could be created with students able to enter and exit the higher education system,
achieving advanced standing on programs on the basis of the credit that they had
accumulated. This would form the basis of life long learning opportunities with workers
regularly upgrading their qualifications as the labor market demanded. In particular, the
regional representatives questioned whether all higher education students need bachelors
degrees as their first post grade 12 qualification and whether there should not be some
qualification outcomes between the TVET diploma/advanced diploma and the BA/BSC,
perhaps in the nature of an associate degree such as is common in the rest of the world at
grade 12+2. The need for new intermediate qualifications was also mentioned by many of the
interviewees, especially by employers. If graduates of these programs later found that as the
Ethiopian economy developed the employment market demanded higher level qualifications,
they could import their credit accumulated into bachelors programs, which they could enter
with advanced standing.
The participants in the study saw a new system of qualifications as having a number of
advantages: students who entered higher education but were not quite able enough to go on
the bachelor level would leave with a worthwhile qualification, part-time students could study
towards a more manageable qualification, and the mid-way associate degree would fulfill a
number of employment niches where TVET training is not producing a workforce quite
educated enough, but a bachelor degree is more than was needed. Thus, the Government
should consider how to enable a post-secondary education and post TVET system of flexible
education that students can enter and exit at different points in their lives and careers (12 +1,
12+ 2 and 12+ 3 bachelor degree; 10+3+1 and 10+3+2, 10+3+3).
It is recommended that a new ladder of qualifications be established as follows:
12+1: Higher Education Certificate
12+2: Associate Degree
12+3: Bachelors Degree
Bachelors+1: Post Graduate Certificate
Bachelors+2: MA/MBA/MSc
Bachelors+3: MPhil
PhD
It is further recommended that those who have achieved well at 10+2 and 10+3 level may be
admitted directly into higher education and those that have achieved exceptionally well at
10+3 should be admitted into the second year of associate degree programs. These
recommendations are discussed in more detail elsewhere in this document.
It is noted that at present 12th grade +1 and +2 studies are supplied in the public sector by
Colleges in the TVET sector. It is possible for HEIs to offer other programs: for instance,
Article 2 of the Higher Education Proclamation states:

26

In this Proclamation, unless the context requires otherwise Higher Education means
education offered to students who attend programs stated in Article 5 of this
Proclamation after they have attended secondary education
Article 5 states:
A curriculum to be developed by any institution shall have programs leading to the
awards of:
1) Diploma
2) First degree
However, there is no provision in the Proclamation specifically for Higher Education
certificates, associate degrees, post graduate certificates or diplomas or the MPhil. Nor is
there specific provision for entry for higher education from Grade 10 + 2 or grade 10 + 3,
though this may be implied by post secondary education in Article 2 of the Proclamation.
Article 31 (1) seems to make this problematic if higher education diplomas/associate degrees
are considered undergraduate programs:
Any institution shall admit, for undergraduate studies, students who have completed
high school education
If necessary, it is recommended that new legislation is enacted for the qualifications
framework to be actualized and to allow suitably qualified TVET students to be admitted to
higher education diplomas/associate degrees. In the short term (until the new qualifications
framework is established), it is recommended that the new HEIs should offer a Higher
Education Diploma after two years of post grade 12 study.
Some of the new HEIs that do not offer bachelors degrees may start by being administered
by the regions, but they will need to be articulated with the HEIs at the national level. A
finance system can be developed that enables either HEIs or colleges to offer 12+1 and 12 + 2
qualifications called (say) Higher Education Certificate and associated degree. Such systems
are common elsewhere for example in the UK TVET is controlled and funded locally and
HE nationally. Nevertheless joint TVET/HEI colleges are common, with funding coming
from the two sources depending upon the number of students at each level in the institution.
Control is exercised from the national or local agency depending on the level of study for the
majority of students.
It is proposed that the new HEIs that are not securely based on an existing HEI (all those
except Dira Dawa, Dilla and Adama), should focus on educating students at 12 + 1 (higher
education certificate and 12 + 2 (associate degree) levels and on providing transfer
opportunities to an established university as appropriate.
The participants in the study also saw advantages in a system of formal linkages between
HEIs and between HEIs and TVET institutions to share resources and staff as appropriate,
quality assurance oversight and to allow a balanced pyramid of qualifications with credit
accumulation and transfer between institutions and levels. It is important to articulate the
opening of these new higher education institutions with the eight existing universities and to
ensure an acceptance of (say) associate degrees/higher education diplomas as giving advanced
standing on awards in the existing and new HEIs. It is recommended that the new HEIs seek a
series of formal associations with local colleges for example, places on the Board, on
advisory committees, on joint planning fora, systems for staff and facilities sharing and
compact schemes to raise the aspirations and achievements of local TVET students by
guaranteeing them a place in the HEI if they achieve certain outcomes. Such schemes will
ensure that the new HEIs are more firmly embedded within the local education system.
There is evidence from the interviews conducted that Ethiopia needs a wider and more
flexible structure of training and qualifications gained through HE institutions. The new

27

qualifications would enable the economy and society to respond to problems and demands by
making more use of teams of people qualified at different levels but working together.
As the country develops, a need for life long learning will grow that cannot be easily
accommodated by long degree courses. Various countries have responded to this challenge. In
Germany, the UK, the US and other countries, undergraduate and post graduate programs
have been modularized to allow students to study in bite-sized chunks and build up credit
over time and transfer them into advanced standing on programs leading to higher
qualifications. In the UK and US short courses, associate degree/foundation degree, diploma
and certificate courses represent steps towards undergraduate degree or a post graduate or
may be taken as qualifications in their own right. Many of these programs are paid for by the
individual studying part-time, but increasingly public and private corporations are being
offered bespoke programs that fit to their strategic objectives, but which can also be used by
employees as credits towards undergraduate or post graduate qualifications.
A two tier system is recommended: full-term universities/university colleges with special
emphasis on bachelors degrees and post graduate programs in a limited number of areas and
a set of two year higher education institutions which provide a general program of course
work focused on preparing for advanced technical and supervisory levels of employment.
Upon successful completion of the introductory program, students could then apply for
reserved places at the full-term universities, arrayed by fields of specialization. As the new
HEIs develop more experience, they might develop the third year of study in a few subjects,
enabling their students exit with an associate degree or continue to bachelors degree level
within the same HEI.
The participants in the study generally agreed that Ethiopia needs a HE sector that is
differentiated, diverse, flexible, innovative and capable of answering the development needs
of the regions and the country in general. The new institutions should not be replicas of
existing HE institutions but more innovative and with new areas of study and offer curricula
that is demand driven and flexible, especially multidisciplinary programs. They would like to
see national curriculum workshops focused on a differentiated curriculum, not the
development of a common curriculum, so each HEI can make a particular and special
contribution to the needs of its region and the country. There are areas such as education
(teachers training) and health science (nursing, laboratory technicians and so on) that will be
offered in several institutions due to the large need of human resources, but these may be
given a particular flavor because of the location of courses (for instance, a focus on informal
education in Afar). Other areas (more economic related) should not be replicas of programs
offered in the existing HEIs but focused on the particular needs of the area.
Delegates to the workshops generally agreed that HE institutions have to focus on their core
business (good education) and outsource services such as catering, lodging of students,
cleaning and others. A policy enabling students to choose their subject and university is
recommended. Such choice would enable more students to live at home and so would partly
alleviate food and lodging problems. Ethnic and regional diversity can be maintained by
ensuring that each HEI achieved a target of (say) at least 50% of out-of-region students. This
could be further nuanced by the HEI being given specific targets for recruitment from
different regions.
Delegates felt strongly that, if the regions are to be real partners in these new institutions, they
need to appoint local people for the Board and to liaise with the Ministry of Education over
the development of the HEIs. The local representatives should come from both the public and
private sectors.
Issues that are worth exploring raised by at least one of the workshops include the idea that
managers should see the influx of young instructors as an opportunity to do new things in new
ways, and to establish a new breed of instructors that are innovative and creative. The idea
was also floated that graduates have to be inquisitive and responsible citizens, able to generate

28

ideas and income. This implies that entrepreneurship should be fundamental to the curriculum
and teaching approach in the new HEIs.
Concern was expressed by most of those consulted about resourcing the new HEIs. Regional
representatives saw a huge challenge for Ethiopia to open new HE institutions due to lack of
human and financial resources. Mobilizing international resources will help to meet the needs
but cannot be the whole answer.

Quality issues
There are certain prerequisites to enable a properly functioning HEI to be set up and operate.
There must be a local infrastructure in terms of effective local government and planning. In
the early stages, the establishment of an HEI needs to be overseen and supported by local
officers on the spot. The development of roads, water systems and other infrastructure cannot
be well managed from the center. In addition, the local authority has to have a clear idea of
what it wants the institution to do (after all, HEIS usually have both a local and national
mission). This requires good background research and a sound planning infrastructure
concerning all the main elements of the economy and society.
In addition, an HEI requires the existence of certain local amenities. There should be good
local secondary schools and TVET colleges producing a good number of well qualified
graduates. This is essential so that there is an educated workforce to staff the administrative
and support services within the HEI and also so hat faculty recruited will be happy to move
their families to the area. In addition there should be other services and amenities both to
attract and retain academic and management staff and to ensure that the services that an HEI
will need can be supplied. These are likely to include good transport links, a town with good
facilities and supplies; good telecommunication and ICT links and a range of shops and goods
within them. If these conditions are not in place, a HEI of whatever level is unlikely to be
viable.
The establishment of more than one HEI at any one time also demands considerable
management expertise and human capacity at the center. It requires that there are central staff
in the Ministry of Education with the capability to oversee several building projects at the
same time, plan and recruit academic and management staff, oversee initial curriculum
development to ensure that facilities (for example, fully equipped libraries, catering outlets,
ICT equipment and technicians) are in place before students are recruited and there is an
infrastructure of sound curriculum documentation, assessment schemes, academic regulation,
institutional management structures, governance structures and the systems and processes to
support these (for instance, budgetary controls and procurement expertise). Without such
assurance and expertise from the center, there is a near certainty that many vulnerable
students will suffer and this will create the conditions for civil unrest.
It is recommended that the Ministry of Education should ensure that the following are in place
and documented before admitting any students to the new colleges:

A clear program of study for all subjects/programs to which students are admitted that
covers 2 years of study

A clear schedule of assessments for all subjects/programs to which students are

admitted that covers 2 years of study

A clear policy for all subjects/programs to which students are admitted that covers
when and how curriculum, teaching, resources and facilities are to be evaluated and
monitored

There are academic regulations that cover all academic matters in place for the
institution including student assessment, the allocation of marks and their

29

contribution to the final award of a qualification, approval of examinations papers,

the operation of examination boards, student appeals and other rights.
Despite not being asked directly about quality issues, the overwhelming majority of
interviewees expressed concern that the opening of 13 new HEIs will create quality problems.
Many of the interviewees remain to be convinced that such a large scale expansion over a
short period of time is a good idea. Similarly, in each of the regional workshops concern was
expressed by at least some of the participants as to whether the rapid expansion would be
possible without loss of quality. The Government has some strategies for the adequate staffing
and resourcing of the new HEIs. However, the quality challenges remain and cannot be
wished away. These require the Government to take tough decisions about quality conditions
and status of the HEIs, at least in their early days.
Some of the projections for resourcing of the new HEIs appear to be somewhat optimistic.
Even if they prove to be less problematic than appears at first sight, the problems of adequate
and sustainable Ethiopian management and staffing, lack of track record and experience in the
new HEIs remains a dilemma.
The currency of a bachelors degree should have national and international standing. If this is
not the case, the value of a degree will be seriously devalued to the real detriment of the
country. For this reason, in most more developed higher education systems there are a series
of relatively tough tests that are applied to the establishment of a new university or
university college in the public sector (i.e. those validated to award a bachelors degree).
These may be tougher than those applied to the private sector. There is a need to such tests to
be determined in Ethiopia. As a minimum, the new HEIs in Ethiopia should comply with the
accreditation criteria applied to the private sector in Ethiopia before they are allowed to run
bachelor degrees. However, this is certainly inadequate for those new HEIs with no track
record whatsoever.
It is also the case that students have a choice as to which private higher education institution
they attend. If the education in one is substandard, it will get a poor reputation and students
will not sign up for courses. In addition, the student pays for the costs of tuition, so the tax
payers of Ethiopia are not paying for the education provided. In the public sector students are
sent to a particular HEI (they cannot exercise consumer choice) and the tax payer has no
choice but to contribute to the education provided. This makes it imperative that the education
provided is of a good standard and the qualifications worth the public investment. This
implies that the accreditation criteria applied to new public sector HEIs should be sufficiently
stringent.
The new HEIs at Dilla, Dire Dawa and Adama have substantial experience as faculties of an
existing university or as a HEI in their own right. It might therefore be reasonable to assume
that they possess the staff expertise, the experience and the facilities to manage their own
degrees and to run bachelors programs from the start. These institutions therefore could be
established from the outset as university colleges (or in Adamas case as a university), able to
offer and validate bachelors degrees in selected subjects, without a serious threat to quality.
The other HEIs have absolutely no track record of providing education at this level. Unlike
most private HEIs that are accredited by Government to offer bachelors degrees in new
subjects, they have not taught programs at a lower level in the subjects that they intend to
offer. They do not have an established and experienced teaching or management staff and they
do not have a facilities and equipment infrastructure in the subjects, built over a period of
time.
For this reason it is suggested that those HEIs that are not based on existing HEIs (i.e. all the
new HEIs apart from those at Dilla, Adama and Dire Dawa) should be affiliated colleges of
an existing HEIs for at least the first five years of their establishment.
This affiliated/affiliating relationship should be one of support rather than control. A senior
manager of the affiliating university should have a place on the Board of the affiliated college,

30

so that the college can benefit from his/her experience and expertise. Each subject department
within the affiliated college should have an advisory committee which should include
representatives from the affiliating university to help with and assure appropriate processes in
relation to academic matters such as course design, course validation and the development of
assessment and other academic regulations. Regular reports should be made of the discussions
in and operation of the advisory committee by one of the affiliating university representative
and reported to the Academic Commission and Board of the affiliated college. Members of
the affiliating university should act as external examiners and double mark a proportion of
examination and other scripts from the affiliated college to ensure that standards in the
college are meeting national standards. The external examiners reports should be received
and discussed by the affiliated colleges Academic Commission. Since these tasks are all in
the nature of governance work, the members of the affiliating university that undertake these
roles should be paid by the affiliated college per diems for each days work they undertake at
the same rate as members of the Board.
Affiliated colleges should be permitted to offer the final year of bachelors programs when:
certain conditions have been met in that subject:
1. They have a pattern of staff qualifications for instructors that conforms with
Government guidelines for HEIs in terms of the proportion of bachelor degree
holders, masters degree holders and PhD holders.
2. They have graduated at least two cohorts and at least 100 students from two year
(associate degree level) programs.
3. The proportion of ex patriot staff does not exceed 20% in either management or
teaching.
4. They have established suitable academic regulations and statutes to regulate the
program that they offer.
5. The institutional set up, quality assurance systems and individual provision in the
subjects in which they wish to offer bachelor degrees has been certified as
satisfactory by HERQA during at least one assessment visit.
6. They have established a research culture, a significant proportion of staff are research
active and a research output suitable for a university exists in terms of publications
and funded projects.
Once they have graduated students in a degree program for at least three years; and are
offering education and training in different professions and programs (see Article 19 of the
Proclamation), they would be eligible to apply for university college status.
The affiliating university should normally be the nearest of the existing universities and
should provide a variety of support during the early years of the affiliated colleges existence
(advice and guidance, staff training and development and help to develop curriculum and
quality systems and so on). In particular, it would ensure that the curriculum in each subject
was developed in partnership with appropriate local stakeholders, and also that it covers those
essential concepts and methodologies appropriate to that discipline.
The first condition (a pattern of staff qualifications for instructors that conforms with
Government guidelines) is to ensure that the new HEIs approximate to international
standards. No bachelors program should be established where the staff are not sufficiently
qualified. To do so would devalue the currency of higher education in Ethiopia.
The second condition (at least two cohorts and at least 100 students from two year programs
have been graduated) ensures that the HEI has enough experience of teaching at a lower level
to be successful in maintaining standards in the final year of the bachelors degree. This final
year is the most crucial in the assurance of standards. It also requires the most experienced
and expert staff and is the most complex to manage administratively and managerially. To

31

allow HEIs with little or no experience of running lower level programs to assume the
responsibility for quality and standards at bachelors degree outcome level would be a real
threat to quality.
The third condition (a proportion of ex patriot staff that does not exceed 20% in either
management or teaching) ensures that the quality and experience of staff in management and
instruction in the subjects where bachelors degrees are to be offered is sustainable in the
longer term and therefore that the quality and standards of degrees offered in Ethiopia will not
slip. In the longer term, Ethiopia cannot afford to pay for the proportion of expatriate staff that
the projections assume in the first few years of the new HEIs existence. Sustainable staffing
has to come from the native Ethiopian population. The average proportion of expatriate staff
in the existing HEIs is just under 14%, so a maximum of 20% is a reasonable maximum level.
The fourth condition (suitable academic regulations and statutes to regulate the programs)
should be a normal expectation of any HEI offering a new bachelors program. Without
adequate academic regulations and statutes the quality and standards of provision cannot be
guaranteed and students become vulnerable to unfair practices.
The fifth condition (institutional set up, quality assurance systems and individual provision in
the subjects in which they wish to offer bachelor degrees certified as satisfactory by HERQA)
helps to ensure that there is an independent check that the HEI is ready to assume full
responsibility for the academic programs it offers up to bachelor degree level. Without such
an independent check stakeholders in Ethiopias system cannot be assured that the currency of
a degree has not been weakened.
The sixth condition (the development of a research culture) ensures that teaching and learning
in the final, project year of the bachelors degree is informed by the best knowledge in the
field available internationally and locally
Until such time as these HEIs have attained the status above, they should offer only the first
two years of any bachelor program. Students can then leave with a 12+2 qualification. Those
students who have attained a grade average that the affiliating university deems appropriate
(say 2.5) may progress directly into the third year of a bachelor degree at the affiliating
university.
If affiliated colleges offering programs below bachelor level
Government under existing legislation, this should not be a
conditions above. Instead, transitional arrangements should
Federal Government transfers funding to the Region in return
developed (say, through places on the Colleges Board).

cannot be run by the Federal

reason for compromising the
be set in place whereby the
for a say in how the HEIs are

During the period of affiliated status, the President of the affiliating university should have a
seat on the Board of the affiliated college. In addition, each subject department in the
affiliated college should have an advisory panel to act as a steering group for the development
of curricula and quality systems that should include members of the relevant subject
departments of the affiliating university, local employers and TVET managers or heads of
department.
All Boards of the new HEIs should have members from both the local and Federal
Government to ensure that all contexts are fully considered in strategic discussion and
direction.

Areas of common and distinctive studies

There should be certain subjects offered by many of the new HEIs because of the needs of the
country and/or because they need less specialist equipment and facilities and so can be
managed without great economies of scale. Amongst these subjects is teacher training.
Traditional distinctions between distance and contact education are blurring in other countries

32

such as South Africa as many institutions realize the benefits of innovative teaching methods.
Mixed-mode delivery, including distance learning materials developed at a national level, is
becoming an increasingly important determinant in the size and shape of the sector. Debub
and African Virtual Universities are planning to cooperate in the development of distance
learning materials to support teacher training in line with the Teacher Education Systems
Overhaul (TESO) reforms. The use of distance modules in teacher training programs
developed by the new HEIs will enable many of them to have quality teacher education
courses, as is required by the country.
In Ethiopia the training of adult educators and adult education planners is one of the most
neglected areas. This is despite its potential and a potent weapon for poverty reduction and
the improvement of social conditions. According to the Institute for International Cooperation
of the German Adult Education Association, apart from Jimma Teachers College there is no
higher learning institute that trains adult educators, and there is none at all that trains the
managers and teacher trainers for the sector. There are no planners trained in adult education
in the Ministry of Education or Regional Bureau to handle the development of methodology
and materials and research that should underpin adult education throughout the country.
Administratively there are 60 zones and 680 woradas and 6000 literacy centers that need adult
educators. In addition, there are hundreds of rural institutions and NGOs that work directly on
adult education and training. All of these need a professional cadre of staff to plan and
manage adult education properly, to develop teaching materials and to undertake the
continuing professional development of teachers in the sector. It is likely that the country
needs thousands of such higher level professionals. For this reason, at least three of the new
HEIs should include the training of adult education teacher trainers and administrators within
their portfolio of courses and develop teaching materials suitable for adults.
The area of health is an important one for Ethiopia. The present universities in Ethiopia do a
good job of turning out graduates of international standard. However, there are various
problems with their present output:

Graduates are very attractive to the developed world their training is generally
based on models from northern universities and has made them highly suited to the
needs of developed countries
Graduates are not oriented to remain in Ethiopia and a proportion seek to emigrate.
Thus northern countries benefit from the health training supplied by the scarce
resources of Ethiopia
The training in Ethiopia, based as it is on northern health training, may be
insufficiently focused on the most urgent issues in Ethiopia (health education at
community level, HIV/AIDS, harmful traditional practices, tuberculosis and other
communicable diseases, malaria, intestinal and parasitic problems and so on) and the
health problems that cause most suffering and death here
The present system is not producing enough health and community workers. Some of
this is the result of present HEI capacity, but some is the result of traditional and
expensive teaching methods and qualification structures
The present system may not be producing the health professionals trained in and able
to operate as teams to prevent and alleviate health and social problems.
The present system is not producing sufficient numbers of lead nurses, manager
midwives, health managers and community leaders who are able to develop their
skills so as to take the relevant profession forward in the Ethiopian context.

Thus, health is an area which most regions will need to focus upon to meet the MDG. It is not
recommended that new faculties to train doctors should be developed, since the economies of
scale in such an expensive subject and the need for high quality training hospitals mean that it
will be better to expand the present provision within existing universities. However, other
health workers can be well trained in local centers and clinics and more cheaply.

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In order that there be leadership and curriculum innovation that is shared between faculties of
community health and education, it is recommended that a specialist institution in each of
these areas be developed (see below) with a mission to develop and spread best practice
across the country.
Engineering and science are very expensive subjects requiring specialist facilities. This means
that resources are best used in a few centers that offer these subjects. Engineering in particular
needs specialist facilities for each of its sub disciplines (electrical engineers cannot share
many facilities with mining engineers). This means that different HEIs can and should
specialize in different sub disciplines.
Where an HEI develops a special and particular flavor it is more likely to grow as a center
of excellence. For this reason, it is not recommended that most of the new HEIs should be
general institutions offering all or most subject areas. Rather, it is recommended that HEIs
focus on a few programs so that each program can offer considerable economies of scale.
Staffing and other resources can be used to much better effect and quality is more likely to be
protected.

Curriculum specialization
Regarding institutional profile and subject mix, the research that underpins this report
indicates that it would be desirable for the new HEIs to move away from the traditional
university model of a full range of courses and faculties, and to put in place a structure that
might allow for centers of excellence in a few strategic disciplines to emerge. Some of these
centers of excellence might engage in targeted research (for instance, a National Womens
University might develop a research center in womens studies); others would aspire to
excellence in producing the kind of middle level supervisory staff the country needs at HE
certificate and associate degree level and would be beacons of business/industrial links. HEIs
would therefore focus on a narrower subject range and a narrower range of levels within
them. This would allow more intensive use of facilities and equipment (see Chapter 5 for
more detail).
Thus, the recommendation is for the new HEIs to be much more specialist, all but a few
focusing on a limited range of subjects, having large specialist resources and facilities and
enrolling many hundreds of students on each of the few programs offered. This will ensure
that the limited number of PhD holders and specialist facilities in each subject are
concentrated in one HEI and can ensure that the discipline is covered properly and all topics
covered by the curriculum are informed by current research.
Such HEIs will need to develop more flexible teaching spaces that allow for lectures to
several hundred students followed by smaller seminar-type exercises. This will also allow for
more intensive use of highly experienced and qualified instructors, who will be in short
supply for the foreseeable future. The few highly qualified instructors available to the system
will be able to lead the large lecturers and prepare seminar material for delivery by teams of
bachelor level qualified instructors thus a relatively larger proportion of minimally qualified
instructors may be employed without a loss of quality (see Chapter 5 below for more detail).
Each HEI will need to tie its decision-making into local labor markets and employer demand.
The World Bank is beginning to do some general analysis of the Ethiopian labor market, but
this work will not be completed until the end of this year. This research should be a valuable
resource for the new HEIs in planning the details of their subject and qualification mix. One
new university model that is emerging in Africa is that of the HEI that serves its immediate
geographic area rather than the nation as a whole. This might hold merit for some of the
proposed new institutions. It is a model that gives higher profile to applied studies at the
community level, along the lines of the community education activities launched at Jimma
University a few years ago.

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Options for regional HEIs

This section of the report looks at what might be the features of different HEIs and how they
might fit together to create a coherent system, rather than a set of more or less duplicate
resources. Many of the ideas were generated in the regional workshops held in July 2005.
The National Womens University of Ethiopia at Dire Dawa
It is recommended that Dire Dawa should aspire to become the National Womens University
of Ethiopia
In the developed world, before gender equality in education was a reality and during the
period when there was widespread and systematic discrimination against women, a number of
women-only HEIs were established, recruiting only female students. They had firm rules
about male visitors and provided public rooms, which were the only parts of the campus
where male visitors were allowed. They became beckons of excellence in terms of womens
education, enabling women to work and study in a safe and non discriminatory environment
and showing the world how women could be supported in their studies so that they could be
at least as successful as men.
Such HEIs also provided a unique employment opportunity for female academic staff (though
in most cases not all staff were female), many of whom became very senior in the educational
world and were able to act as advocates of female education and emancipation in the political
and popular spheres.
The trend for women-only HEIs are not a feature of the developed world only. For example,
there are women's universities in Kenya, Sudan and Zimbabwe. These HEIs have the
additional advantage of persuading families that otherwise might have discouraged their
daughters from further study, especially if it meant leaving the safety and protection of the
family home, to allow them to attend a single sex establishment.
Some of those that fully subscribe to the importance of learning spaces where women are safe
and where they find suitable and appropriate high level professional orientation, will feel that
a women-only institute is based on a Women in Development approach, rather than on a
Gender and Development approach. It is therefore important that gender aspects are
recognized and defined in the new HEI. For instance, issues such as intimidation or sexual
harassment should not be considered solved in such an environment and the question of
budgeting for womens strategic needs should be an issue for debate. The HEI would have the
specific mission to provide a model for female equality and mainstreaming gender activities.
If such a women-only institution develops a research agenda in relation to gender
mainstreaming in higher education institutions, it can become a major contributor to gender
equity through dissemination and advocacy on gender mainstreaming issues. Such a research
agenda can be highly appropriate for an institution of higher learning and could become an
important source of information for quality and relevance aspects of higher education.
The HEI should undertake a broad range of courses with curriculum, assessment and teaching
methods designed to match female learning styles and interests. It should become a center of
excellence through its research and consultancy, especially in the area of gender studies as
applied to areas such as health, education, law, employment and finance. It would provide
policy, research and advice as to effective methods of combating disadvantage, discouraging
harmful traditional practices, protecting women and their families from HIV/AIDS and
empowering them in their role of carer and planner in the family and economic provider.
It should be authorized to admit a proportion of its students directly and to experiment with
and research the effects of non traditional recruitment techniques and criteria. Examples of
these might include taking students with lower high school scores who nevertheless

35

demonstrate that they would be likely to succeed, for example because they are older than
average and have acquired appropriate learning skills through their life experience or because,
although they are less well qualified than students admitted through the normal route, they
have nevertheless have achieved much better than most at their particular secondary school.
Such students might be admitted in the first place into a two year associate degree/higher
education diploma that covers the first two years of the degree and, those that achieve well
enough, should be allowed to top up to a bachelors degree at this or another HEI.
Many females are discouraged from studying by their families if it means that they must leave
the protection of the home. This appears to be a particular problem in Muslim families who
also worry about subjecting their daughters to a mixed-sex environment. In order that the
maximum number of educationally disadvantaged women students who could benefit from
this facility, its location in a large town such as Dire Dawa is ideal.
The presence of a womens HEI in a town can enable linkages with families and secondary
schools to encourage children, especially girls and their families to have higher aspirations, to
be more likely to succeed in secondary education, sit the university entrance examination and
have the opportunity for higher education. The surrounding Somali Region is one where
females are highly disadvantaged in educational terms: only 0.4% of girls sat for the
university entrance examination. This is a pitifully low number that should be rectified.
Dire Dawa is situated on one of the main trade routes to the Arabic speaking world. In many
parts of the world women create and run the majority of small businesses. This implies that
training women students in entrepreneurship would increase their life chances and also
contribute to the economy. If some of these women were also trained in Arabic for business,
they would be well equipped to create enterprises that contribute to the export economy of
Ethiopia. Dire Dawa has a range of agricultural products to which value could be added for
the export trade.
It is recommended that in the first instance the program offered to women students should
include entrepreneurship, business and management. The entrepreneurship program should
encompass higher education diploma/associate degree and bachelor level qualifications. It
would be the first of its kind in Ethiopia and might include business studies, management
skills, market research and marketing, micro finance enterprise, business planning and risk
assessment. The final project might be to research and develop a business plan for a small
enterprise. It is probable that a donor could be found to fund a competition for which the prize
would be a small grant and free business advice for the best of these projects, so they could be
actually realized as new businesses.
It is recommended that Dira Dawa should offer Arabic for business as one of its options or
streams within business, and leadership and management for women and enterprise programs.
The institution should also start a faculty with food technology and chemical engineering and
in the longer term move on to mechanical and electrical engineering
One issue which was mentioned by employers at the national level but which was not
considered in the regional workshop is that a major barrier to the export of Ethiopian goods
(and export substitution) is the poor design of goods in terms of aesthetics and durability. For
this reason, at least one HEI in Ethiopia should establish a design department that focuses on
industrial and aesthetic design, with a strong fine art component. Since in many countries,
such a combination appeals particularly to women students, and because Dire Dawa is a
center for leather production, it is proposed that such a faculty should be started at Dira Dawa.
The National Pedagogic and Technical University at Adama (Nazareth)
Adama is a city that is fortunate in having good power supplies, clean water and excellent
communication systems. These factors have contributed to an economy that is more vibrant
than much of Ethiopia.

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Adama University has built up considerable expertise over the years as the sole supplier of
TVET instructors. It has developed expertise in technical subjects highly appropriate to the
countrys needs. More recently it has moved into aspects of business education and computer
studies. The institution has a lively research culture (three of its researchers have contributed
to this study). It still needs to develop better links with its local community, especially in
terms of applied research and consultancy, in order to impact positively on the social and
economic environment. Fortunately it is committed to innovation and vocational relevance
(see Haileleul: 2005).
It is recommended that Adama should aspire to become the National Pedagogic and Technical
University
There is often a danger of mission drift when an institution achieves university status.
Fortunately, the University has a clear vision and mission that is focused on its core business.
It is the experience of other countries that HEIs frequently seek to diversify, seeking status in
becoming more comprehensive in subject range. This frequently leads to a loss of focus, a
diminishing of areas of excellence, and a general watering down of standards. Adama has
developed a specialism in technical teacher training. This specialism is sorely needed in a
country such as Ethiopia that is seeking to rapidly expand its TVET system. It is
recommended that Adama seeks to develop as a center of excellence and research in the
following areas:

The training of instructors for TVET both at undergraduate and post graduate levels
Research into TVET related issues (e.g. Ethiopias labor needs, business consultancy
needs, appropriate TVET course structures, and how TVET students learn)
The training of trainers of field workers in areas such as health, informal education
and on-the-job trainers in office practice, ICT, adult and continuing education
Setting up and hosting a National Association for Adult and Continuing Education,
developing teaching materials and undertaking research into adult education and
pedagogy in the non-formal sector
The inclusion of entrepreneurship in all courses and close links with the world of
work
Technical studies and applied science

At a later date Adama University might develop as a center for masters degree and PhD
training in higher education pedagogy for technical and scientific subjects.
The Ethiopian University of Development and Indigenous Studies at Dilla
It is recommended that Dilla should aspire to become the University of Development and
Indigenous Studies for Ethiopia.
There is merit in at least one HEI focusing and becoming a center of expertise for
development studies, similar to the University for Development Studies in Ghana. In
Ethiopia, Jimma University has made great strides in developing a system of community
education. Dilla could explore some of the approaches developed at Jimma and seek to take
them further. The HEI should emphasize agricultural sciences, health sciences, formal and
non formal education and integrated development studies. Part of its mission could be to
research the above subjects with a specific focus on the development context of Ethiopia and
to provide practical training with a development orientation in the subjects it teaches.
Such an HEI might most usefully be in large part a distributed HEI with considerable
distance learning programs and local outposts. It could be charged with developing as a
specifically pro-poor institution with a philosophy and a program focused a working in the
field in practical programs and studying solutions in context to help the rural poor. It will need

37

to work closely with the new Open University of Ethiopia so as to maximize economies of
scale in terms of distributed networks and systems.
In the project part of the program the students, with guidance from their Faculty, might
identify development challenges, goals and opportunities with the people and design ways of
working towards those goals and aspirations with the people. This would ensure that students
and staff work closely with disadvantaged people in their communities as an integrated part of
the curriculum. The HEI thus could be community-based and community oriented, studentcentered and teacher-independent
The Commission for Africa recommends that there should be more attention given to climate
change and the environment, especially creating sustainable agriculture. This HEI should
have programs to train students as leaders in these areas.
Dilla is situated in the SNNPR. This is a region that is particularly rich in its variety of
indigenous cultures. These cultures are part of Ethiopias social and cultural heritage. A local
center (perhaps supported by the Institute of Ethiopian Studies at Addis Ababa University)
could help to study and protect these cultures, ensure that their knowledge and traditions are
not lost and encourage responsible tourism that supports but does not damage this cultural
diversity.
SNNPR is a region that suffers from low education, illiteracy, early marriage and unequal
status between men and women. School education and non-formal education are important
tools in overcoming these problems.
In the early stages, Dilla cannot achieve all of these matters. For this reason, it is
recommended that its early priorities should be the establishment of programs in cultural and
indigenous studies, teacher education in civil education, computer science and business (with
Swahili for business as one option) and a program for health educators.
The other new institutions should be affiliated to an existing university (generally their
nearest university) which will provide governance, quality assurance and curriculum support.
Madda Walabu (Bale-Robe) Affiliated Higher Education College of Health and Community
Studies
The importance of health to Ethiopias development means that at least one HEI should be
established that focuses on health and community studies and which also offers associated
social and biological science subjects.
This HEI should develop curricula that focus on Ethiopias social and health needs rather than
international health standards. The focus in all areas should be on interdisciplinary team
working and the interface between the health and social structures of communities, especially
in relation to nutrition, immunization, infectious diseases, malaria prevention, the prevention
of harmful traditional practices, and HIV/AIDS. The focus should be on changing unhelpful
beliefs and practices, raising awareness and enabling families to behave in a healthy way.
Such interventions might do much to improve the health of the nation and increase the
productivity of its people, and are likely to be more cost-effective than expensive treatment
programs. Much of this extension would be carried out by people who are not graduates:
higher education diploma/associate degree holders would have an important role in providing
some of the family health training and health management and community leaders that the
region and the country needs (see Bedada Mergo: 2005).
The HEI should train health center and educational managers able to rectify the poor
management of existing resources. As an example, the availability of professionally and
technically trained staff such as physicians or HIV/AIDS nurses is sometimes reduced by
giving them substantial administrative responsibilities which could more effectively be
undertaken by trained managers and administrators.

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Higher educations potential contribution would not only be to training but through relevant
research on which to base financial and strategic decisions so as to achieve the balance
between identified need and realistic budgeting. The HEI should also develop research into
effective interventions by nurses and various para professions to discover what techniques
and methods work in terms of improving life expectancy and quality of life. In addition,
health care specialists should be trained in areas such as: anti-retroviral treatment (ART) and
HIV/AIDS prevention; physiotherapy; orthopedic technology; obstetrics; and family and
child care.
The HEI might also be given the mission to be proactively innovative in what it does. In
particular, it should experiment with integrated and interdisciplinary studies and training for
inter professional working in community settings. This integrated training should involve
community attachments in rural areas. This would encourage associate degree graduates to
work with the 85% of the population who live in rural areas. Such attachments might include
community diagnosis, surveys of health needs and suggested solutions. This would encourage
students to be health problem solvers and to take a team approach. The HEI should
experiment with task oriented curriculum and assessment, with hands on training linked to
performance-based assessment and research, and disseminate the results.
The HEI should become a center of excellence that can be an example to others and a source
of information and training in how to develop in students skills and qualities such as: team
leadership and team working skills; interpersonal skills and ability to communicate well;
interagency working; and knowledge about HIV/AIDS.
The new HEIs should undertake practically-based research, including the effects of programs
on the health of the community and methods of intervention that work.
The HEI would have a key role in strengthening community responsibility, so that local
communities would be empowered to identify and tackle local health problems, both in terms
of prevention and of care. In the Ethiopian context, higher level improvements would always
be of limited value in themselves, unless connections between such improvements and work
at community and house-level are smoothed and integrated. By producing the right kind of
confident, knowledgeable and skilled higher education diploma/associate degree graduates
the new HEI would make an important contribution to this development.
The HEI should have an education faculty. It is particularly beneficial if education and health
work hand in hand to improve the life chances of poor and rural communities. Health
professionals should contribute to the development of curriculum and teaching and
educational professionals should assist with models of community teaching and learning. The
two sectors should collaborate in community health and action to promote social well being
such as HIV/AIDS prevention.
Madda Walabu should not be precluded from developing some minor specialisms where these
relate closely to the region, such as tourism.
Sodo Affiliated Higher Education College of Science and Health
SNNPR is a region which suffers many health challenges. Health services coverage is only
46%, only 48% of the population has access to clean water and people in the region suffer
from poor reproductive heath (see Mesfin: 2005). Sodo is close to an area that has great
potential for tourism. However, the town at the center of the area most attractive to tourists,
Arba Minch, has a university so courses to support a growing industry might be better located
there.
The SNNPR delegates to the regional workshop wanted to give emphasis to distance
education. Sodo could attempt to develop particularly close links with the Open University of
Ethiopia as it is established in order to become a center of knowledge about the technical and
pedagogic aspects of distance education in health related subjects.

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It is recommended that Sodo should start as a scientific and health college, focused on a few
subjects in the first instance, including natural resource science, rural science and family
health.
The choice of disciplines at Sodo should enable it to develop inter-professional and
interdisciplinary areas of study and research that are likely to win affiliation with foreign
institutions of higher learning and research and which interviewees in the research state are
exactly what the country needs.
Mizan/Tepi Affiliated Higher Education College of Technology and Agriculture
Semera Affiliated Higher Education Teachers and Agricultural College
Debre Markos Affiliated Higher Education Health and Agriculture College
It is recommended that Debre Markos, Mizan/Tepi and Semera should each capitalize on their
rural location and start as agricultural colleges, focused on a few subjects in the first instance.
In the case of Mizan/Tepi these should include teacher training in technical subjects, animal
health, dairy science and agro-economics. Mizan/Tepi is located in the SNNPR. This is an
agricultural area on the main trading route to Southern African countries known for its vast
water resource. The region has various social problems, including a population growth of 3%
each year that is outstripping the local resources, poor infrastructure and a local economy
largely dependent on subsistence farming characterized by poor animal nutrition, poor genetic
structure and high levels of animal disease. Crop production is a smaller proportion of the
local economy, but still significant. Agriculture is dominated by small scale farmers,
combining rain-fed mixed farming with traditional technologies.
Appropriate training could enable Mizan/Tepis higher education diploma/associate degree
graduates to develop the export trade in agricultural products and add value to them through
manufacture or processing. For this reason, it is suggested that it should develop agroeconomics programs. In the medium term courses could be developed in product design and
manufacturing based on agricultural products: leather working, paper production and food
processing.
In the case of Debre Markos, courses should include agriculture, the training of health officers
and nurses. There are high incidences of diseases such as malaria and HIV which affect the
workforce particularly the attrition rates in teachers. The official figure for HIV infection
rates for the region (12%) may underestimate the problem. EC 1993 antenatal figures put the
incidence as 23.4% in Bahir Dar and 15.2% in Gondar. There is a need for a health facility
which could help with malaria research and training people for HIV/AIDS education and
treatment. Parts of the Amhara region are food insecure and 58% of the national soil erosion
loss occurs in the Amhara. The HEI should be equipped with up to date agricultural facilities
to develop research and courses on agriculture which look at changing farming practices;
plant and animal husbandry; pests and plant diseases; agro chemical and organic approaches;
and land/environmental management.
Since Benshangul will not have its own HEI within the region, Debra Markos should also
plan to meet the Benshangul regions most pressing higher level training needs
Semera is a desert town with virtually no infrastructure, hardly any industry and little
commerce. It is a hot inhospitable environment that would not be conducive to study without
properly engineered buildings. The present government buildings are poorly constructed,
often unfinished and are already falling part. They create an unacceptable working
environment, especially in a location that is not otherwise attractive to employees. It is a
regional center that experiences a very high turnover of staff and the regional government
struggles with continuity in planning and key posts. A new HEI would be a welcome boost to
the local economy, but it must be recognized that unless incentives were provided for staff

40

and students to study there, the new HEI would not be sustainable. This implies that the new
HEI would need special and very advantageous funding if it is to be sustainable as a quality
institution.
If it is nevertheless decided to establish the college, it is recommended that the subjects
offered at Semera should include pastoral agriculture, animal health and production and
teacher training (especially focused on the management of non formal and adult and basic
education and training and developing teaching materials). The focus of these courses should
be to supply a workforce that is trained in providing mobile and flexible services to support
the nomadic lifestyle of the people. To be effective in this context, these professionals would
all need an understanding of cultural change, nomadic agricultural life and the health and
social challenges they present, conflict resolution and management skills. In the longer term,
if the HEI proves viable, courses in mineral exploitation (particularly salts and sulphur) might
add value to the local economy.
Jijiga Affiliated General Higher Education College
It is particularly important in the development of a general college to involve all concerned
stakeholders in curricula development and to have in depth discussions about the anticipated
graduate profiles in different disciplines. The job of consultation is more complex than with
more specialist institutions where relationships with employers and others in particular
occupational areas are easier to establish and more natural seeming for the employers. This
is a challenge that each of these generalist HEIs must seek to overcome.
The case for supplying more University places for this region is particularly problematic.
Progression rate from Grade 12 is low considering the size of the regional population approximately 5 million. A total of 313 students passed to University in 1996 EC: 212 male
students and 31 females. This situation improved in 1997: 317 males passed and 65 Females.
Even if these figures improve over the next five years as participation levels in Secondary
Education should increase (last available figures show only 2% of children attend secondary
education who could attend, and only 16.08% attendance rate for primary school), there will
still not be enough school leavers to make the institution viable.
The researchers during their visit to the region found an environment hostile to non Somalis,
with open prejudice against them. This, combined with problems over law and order, security
issues, lack of secondary school infrastructure, lack of infrastructure and weak local planning
possibly caused by high turnover of staff, calls into question whether the Somali region is
ready for a higher education institution in development terms.
If an HEI is nevertheless established, it would need to meet Somalis varied needs. The region
suffers regular droughts and is food insecure. The areas population is predominantly
pastoralist and nomadic farmers (regional planners are unsure of the exact proportion of
population). Delivering services to this community is difficult as the community often fails to
engage consistently with government departments or authority. The regional government is
trying to deal with this by creating irrigated areas near to water sources where the pastoralists
are encouraged to settle there are believed to be over 26 million head of livestock in the
region. 40% of the current arable land could be irrigated. There is an an urgent need for
teachers at all levels and for more training for the existing teachers. This region is employing
Grade 12 students to teach at Grade 8 in class sizes of 100-120. The region has very few
qualified teachers and supports only four qualified at Bachelor level to study at Masters level.
The Region has natural deposits of oil, natural gas and salts. There are no regional plans to
develop these resources or the potential service industries: development of these resources is a
seen locally as a Federal matter. There is a need for better training in good governance and
public administration: for example there appears to be no regional plan (or if there is, the staff
in the regional authority did not know of it).

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It is therefore recommended that Jijiga would be established as a general college, focused on

teacher training, engineering and mining and health studies. In the longer term, if the college
proves viable, courses could be introduced in public administration, water engineering and
arid agriculture.
Wellega (Nekempte) Affiliated General Higher Education College

Wellega/Nekempte is a region that suffers from repetitive drought, soil degradation and
deforestation which means that the area struggles to support its rapidly growing population. It
is located in the Oromiya region in which 89% of the population is dependent on agriculture,
mostly mixed farming. There are various sources of water that have the potential for irrigation
and electrical power production. There are also some mineral resources that might be
developed with the help of the new HEI (see Tollera: 2005).

Wellega/Nekempte regional representatives also feel that this college should include a range
of courses. Because of local needs and conditions, it is recommended that these should start
with mining and water engineering, economics, accounting, and forestry. At a later date
programs in agriculture and animal science may be developed. The college should develop a
diversified approach to regular, evening extension and summer programs. Since Gambella
will not have an HEI within its region, the new HEI should also look to Gambellas needs for
higher level training and seek to meet these as par as possible within the curriculum.
Axum Affiliated Higher Education General College
Axum is in a region in which 61% of the population has access to basic health care, 52% has
access to potable water and 75% experience food insecurity. There is very high
unemployment, much of it female. Only 19% of teachers have a degree and there is little time
for upgrading of qualifications. 55% of the population have access to primary health facilities.
Half of the Tigray area is malerious. The primary focus is development through agriculture
through improving output and diversification and irrigation. There are some industries and
assembly works and a smaller scale textile industry. There is potential to increase tourism and
exploit mineral resources. Axum is the center of the most ancient and arguably the most
important archeological site in the country. This presents huge potential for archeological
study and for tourism, especially if peace with Eritrea can be maintained. There is a shortage
of facilities and trained personnel to support an expanding tourist industry. The road
infrastructure in Tigray is poor and roads that exist are badly maintained. The construction of
roads is hampered by difficult terrain. The Federal and Regional Governments and NGOs
remain the main employers. The needs are for teachers, teacher trainers, civil constructions
and water, business marketing and tourism and agricultural research (see Solomon: 2005).
Not all of these needs can and should be met by the HEI, especially in its first years of
operation. Even in the longer term, many may be met through expanded programs at Mekele
University. Mekele University might be encouraged to expand or develop provision in civil,
water and construction engineers; geologists and surveyors and agricultural research.
The region around Axum has a variety of social problems and therefore needs more teachers
and health workers. However, it is uniquely placed to assist the tourist industry in Ethiopia by
developing its archeological knowledge and base. It is therefore recommended that Axum
should develop programs in teacher training, health sciences and archeology. In the medium
term it might develop tourism courses, especially focused on quality issues and marketing.
Dessie Affiliated Higher Education Industrial and Vocational College
There is consensus amongst those interviewed and in the literature that Ethiopia needs a
sustained investment in its infrastructure: the financial and insurance sectors;

42

telecommunications; roads; irrigation and water supply systems; small and large scale power
projects; urban planning; and slum upgrading. At least one HEI should specialize in the
training of technical staff and managers to sustain an investment and improvement in
infrastructure.
Although 89% of the Amhara regions population are involved in agriculture, the economy is
predominantly subsistence farming. Farming contributes 55% of the local GDP. Allowing for
some unemployed the remaining 10% of the population are involved in service industry,
manufacturing and construction; these industries contribute 45% of the local GDP. There
needs to be some development of the industrial infrastructure and in the long term courses
linked to this.
Dessie regional delegates describe the development of its local industry as its priority. The
country will also need a university college in the medium term that is a center of training and
knowledge related to infrastructure, industry and vocational training. It is therefore
recommended that Dessie develops as a specialist industrial and vocational college and starts
by opening programs in industrial engineering and management. Later it should develop into
other infrastructure-related areas. In the medium term these might include financial and
insurance sectors; telecommunications; urban planning; and slum upgrading.
Debre Birhan Affiliated Higher Education College Social and Vocational Studies
There is a need for a college that focuses on social vocational studies. It is recommended that
Debre Birhan should fulfill this role. There is a clear need for Ethiopia to develop its adult
and continuing education provision, to develop literacy and a variety of skills and learning
materials that would increase livelihood at community level. Initiatives by donors, woredas
and NGOs are not achieving good outcomes in terms of student retention and poverty
reduction in part because of poorly trained staff, lack of trained coordinators and managers.
There is a need for an institution to engage in specialist training for the trainers of those who
will lead and teach in Community Skills Training Centers, for community leaders to lead
developments such as farmer training and to develop local training in entrepreneurship and
other areas that will have the potential to increase livelihood. Such an institution should
develop skills and expertise in the particular needs of adult learners (especially those in the
non-formal sector) and develop curriculum materials appropriate to their needs.
Like other regions visited there is a shortage of teachers and trainers in Amhara at all levels in
education, including the University for example, the University needs to recruit 350
academic staff this year and have only secured 210. The University also has some concerns
that many of those recruited are below the standard that would be normally recruited and
many will not turn up. Secondary schools particularly rural schools - are also desperately
short of teachers; attrition rates at secondary and primary are high.
A priority has to be for secondary school teachers only 39% of the current teachers are
trained teachers, and 61% of these are not trained to the level at which they are working. The
region needs 1200 Bachelor level secondary school teachers urgently and it has recruited only
240. Many of those recruited are not willing to go to the rural areas. Therefore Debre Birhan
should introduce secondary teacher training.
It is recommended that Debre Birhan start by developing programs in the training of trainers
and managers for adult and continuing education programs in the formal and non formal
sectors, and cooperate with the National Pedagogic and Technical University in developing a
National Association for Adult and Continuing Education and researching what forms of adult
and continuing education produce the best social and economic returns. The college should
also support local business by developing economics and accounting.
Most of the interviewees in Amhara recognized that there needed to be: better training in good
governance and public administration - to improve financial management; reduce

43

bureaucracy; and improve decision making in local/regional government. In the medium term,
Debre Behan should open courses in public administration.

Areas for development or expansion in existing universities

The regional representatives recognize that the new HEIs in their regions cannot supply all
their needs. They also recognize that there are economies of scale in existing universities
expanding their provision rather than replicating programs everywhere. Areas which are not
suitable for development in the new HEIs in the first instance, but the regional representative
and others recommend as priorities as new programs to be introduced or existing programs to
be expanded in the existing universities in or near their region include the following:
Afar Region (Alemaya University):
Medicine
Management
Engineering
Dire Dawa (Alemaya University)
Business
Teacher training
Natural science (post graduate)
Somali Region (Alemaya University)
Medicine
Mining
Engineering
Agriculture
Tigray Region (Mekelle University)
Medicine
Tourism
Management
Mining
Engineering
Oromia Region (Jimma University)
Law
SNNPR (Jimma and Debub Universities)
Veterinary medicine
Agro-forestry
Medicine
Civil engineering

Addis Ababa, Jimma, Gondor, Debub and Mekelle Universities

Some of those interviewed recommended masters and PhD programs in nursing,
environmental health, pharmacy etc. so as to provide the leaders and trainers in these
professions. For example, there has recently been a health extension program sending 30,000
female workers to work alongside households. It is recommended that the existing HEIs

44

should bring in programs to upgrade such workers to degree level, who could then act as
leaders and trainers within the program. This would require the development of bridging
programs.
All training provided by the HEI should fit with a philosophy of hands on, client/patient
centered working and inter disciplinarily and inter professional working.
In developed countries such as the UK where there are shortages of doctors, accelerated
training routes have been developed for students who already possess a degree. It has been
found that such shortened training has not led to any decline in outcome standards. Doctors
leave Ethiopia in great numbers and need to be replaced. It is recommended that the existing
universities faculty offer shortened training to MD (perhaps 3 years) for those who hold a
relevant bachelors degree (e.g. biological science, nursing, and health officer). Such training
should involve on-the-job training supervised by the university as well as university-based
training.

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Chapter 4: Curriculum, pedagogic principles and

qualifications
An organizational framework
Most institutions in Ethiopia have organized their curriculum into chunks of learning that are
termed modules. This facilitates continuous assessment but has few of the other advantages
that accrue from true modularity.
The advantages of a proper modular system are apparent across the world. One advantage is
that students can be given more choice in the modules they study (one business program
student may take more marketing modules and another more accounting modules). Joint
subject degrees can easily be offered alongside single subject degrees (students doing a joint
award in business and health studying for part of their time alongside management students
and for another part of their time alongside health officers), again providing more student
choice and enabling more career options. Science students can study a few key modules in the
social sciences (and vise versa) and so increase their critical abilities and their abilities to
apply their knowledge to social/scientific problems. Interdisciplinary studies and interprofessional studies can be facilitated (health officers can be trained alongside nurses for at
least some of their program).
Another advantage is that modularity allows for flexibility. Programs can more easily be
updated when a change does not require the whole syllabus to be reconceived. Economies of
scale can be achieved where students from different programs share some of their modules.
Where student intake onto programs is large enough (true modular programs work best when
they are comparatively large), further economies of staff time and expertise may be achieved
by teams of instructors working together on a module, sharing the planning and each taking a
turn to give the lead lecture and plan the follow up seminars.
It is therefore recommended that the new HEIs should organize their programs into true
modular courses and that the affiliating universities and affiliated colleges develop a credit
transfer and accumulation system that allows modules taken in the college to count towards
degrees offered in the affiliating university as follows:

Each program has a range of modules, some of which are required for an award and
some of which are optional
There is space within each program for students to take two or three modules from
other disciplines and to count these towards their degree
Students must take a specified number of modules at different levels (generally level
one modules are taken in year one of the program, level two in year two and so on)
Some level two or three modules will have prerequisite level one modules that must
be taken and passed (for instance, a Arabic for business basic level module might be
required for entry into an Arabic for business intermediate level module)
Students can take single subject or two subject/joint degrees (major/minor or equal)
Different programs may share common modules (for example an economics program
may share some modules with a business program)
All modules require the same amount of students study time and all have similar
weight of assessment
There are institutional regulations covering all programs about how the marks from
the assessment of individual modules at each level allow progression onto the next
level and contribute to the final award.

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Principles to underpin curriculum design

The interviews conducted and other research indicate that there may be a lack of match
between Ethiopian employer and stakeholder requirements and the curriculum, pedagogy and
assessment methods commonly developed by the existing HEIs. To ensure sustainability, at
the design and curriculum development stage, the new HEIs should engage in consultation
over these matters as widely as possible with local and national stakeholders. This implies
that there should be a recommended curriculum benchmarking process, developed on the
advice of the HERQA. It is recommended that there should be benchmarks that indicate
some minimum outcome standards in broad subject families, but these should not be so
detailed as to prevent considerable local variation in curriculum content, but should ensure
that basic concepts and methodologies within the subject are properly covered.
It is desirable to have greater differentiation in higher education curricula than presently exists
in Ethiopia in order to respond flexibly to labor market demands, to local and national social
needs and to the expectations of a variety of private providers. A dimension of this is the
modification of curricula to take account of Ethiopias diversity, such as the variety of local
economic opportunities, languages and cultures. Without such flexibility and differentiation
there is a danger that the new HEIs will produce many graduates ill-prepared for the demands
of contributing to the regional and countrys development and so vulnerable to graduate
unemployment. The political benefits of expanding enrollments cannot be seen in isolation
from the economy. It is not desirable to see graduate unemployment as a temporary,
transitional phenomena necessary to achieve economic growth. Graduate unemployment can
be very costly in both social and economic terms. Unemployed youth are more likely to
become HIV positive, use drugs, get pregnant, engage in petty crime and contribute to
political unrest. Once a reservoir of unemployed youth is created, it is very difficult to
disperse.
Ethiopias higher education system has given more recognition to education of mentally and
physically challenged students than most in Africa. The best example is the number of blind
students at AAU. This comparative advantage could be highlighted in the new HEIs, and
could in time become a feature that might attract students from neighboring countries. It is
recommended that different HEIs specialize in catering for students with particular
disabilities: one having hearing loops for deaf students, another special facilities for blind and
yet others specializing in supporting problems such as dyslexia. Such specialisism is in part a
matter of facilities and resources, but it also requires changes in pedagogy, curriculum
materials and approach supported by in-service training. This is an area where is should be
relatively easy to get donor funding and technical support.
In parallel with this, it is recommended there should be more use of the idea of Centers of
Excellence (not just at postgraduate level) in order to provide competition and encourage
quality education at each level and specialist research.
Students should be very knowledgeable in HIV/AIDS prevention and believe that it is
possible to eradicate the disease. It is important to develop this spirit of determination and
optimism through all curricula.
To support all of these new approaches, there will be a need for re-orientation of academic
staff most of whom would have been trained in traditional environments (see Chapter 5 for
more detail).

A model of the ideal graduate

The interviews conducted reveal an apparent pattern of weaknesses in the graduates that are
presently coming out of the higher education institutions. One common problem is that

47

graduates lack practical competence. The higher education sector has realized this problem
and is addressing it through the development of Academic Development and Resource
Centers (ADRCs) and a more practical curriculum. It is recommended that ADRCs should be
established as the earliest priority in each of the new HEIs and staffed by well paid academic
managers who are given credit for at least ten teaching hours a week. This will be essential to
help deal with the influx of inexperienced and under qualified instructors that inevitably will
be the response to the immediate staffing crisis. The centers can provide emergency and then
longer term training and development. The EQUIP Project will by then have developed
quality materials that can support that training. This may not be enough: the new HEIs will, at
a minimum, need an extended support program and finance to cover the development of
pedagogy and curriculum.
The interviewees consistently emphasize the need for graduates that display self confidence,
inquisitiveness and creativity. This implies that the curriculum will not be overcrowded with
content. Inquisitiveness and creativity require that students have time to experiment with
ideas and investigate their consequences. Self confidence requires that students will have had
the opportunity to discuss issues in small peer groups, disagree, formulate arguments and
receive praise and recognition for so doing. Such experiences will develop even quieter
students willingness to express their opinions, even where they may differ from those of the
majority. It also requires that students achieve depth in their studies, rather than skimming the
surface. All of this takes much more time than rote learning facts, so the number of topics that
can be fitted into the curriculum must be reduced.
The Commission for Africa emphasizes the importance to development of the establishment
of small enterprises with particular emphasis on young people and women. This implies that
all HEIs should incorporate the skills, knowledge and attitudes for entrepreneurial activity
across the curriculum and some should develop programs in the extension program to enable
students to work up a business plan and to understand matters such as cash flow, pricing and
costing and cost control as well as developing programs in the languages of geographically
close trading partners (especially Swahili and Arabic).
Entrepreneurialism should be a central quality fostered by pedagogy: entrepreneurs are
willing to take risks, they are ambitious, they are creative in their thinking and they are able to
plan in a logical way. This requires a can do philosophy from their instructors, who
encourage students to think outside of the box, who encourage them to aspire to higher
levels and non traditional areas (especially female students there is evidence that many
successful female entrepreneurs and high level managers have been encouraged to aspire to a
higher level than they thought possible by a male manager or teacher at a crucial point in their
lives) and who praise initiative and experimentation, even when it is not entirely successful.
Of course it also depends on the right sort of pedagogic training for the instructors and the
right sort of curriculum opportunities.
It was repeatedly emphasized by interviewees that graduates need to be equipped to make
their own jobs. This requires training in business planning, ICT, obtaining micro finance and
so on. Perhaps more importantly, it requires a pedagogy that encourages students to take risks
and to think both critically and creatively. Creativity and risk taking are absolutely essential
for the entrepreneur, but of themselves they are insufficient. In addition a successful
entrepreneur is likely to be well organized, hard working, self motivated and able to manage
their own time well. It is obvious that an overcrowded, spoon feeding curriculum and
pedagogy will not achieve these qualities. The new HEIs should develop a curriculum and
pedagogy where problems are identified and solved, students brain storm ideas and students
are not over taught, but do independent work that is regularly checked, where they are
encouraged to diagnose their own strengths and weaknesses and given credit for establishing
their own action plan to rectify their weaknesses. If the new HEIs achieve such outcomes,
they could become beacons of innovative and effective practice for the sector.

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It is important that graduates are educated to display integrity and ethical awareness. It is
recommended that the ethical aspects of each subject should be thematically discussed and
considered and the ethical responsibilities of students emphasized, both in their conduct as
students and as future employees and leaders/managers. This ethical awareness should
encompass gender and the need to work for gender equality and fairness, multi-ethnic/multicultural education, tolerance and understanding, the need to respect others rights and fulfill
responsibilities and the ethical response to HIV/AIDS in terms of personal responsibility and
non-discriminatory attitudes. These kinds of qualities cannot be developed solely by add on
generic modules. They must be integrated into aspects of every subject as permeating themes.
Civics education is important in an emerging democracy. The new HEIs should seek to do
more than incorporate civics education an add-on module. They should consider how to
integrate notions of democracy, participation and responsibility into all aspects of the
curriculum and into the pedagogic process. Students should be encouraged to celebrate
diversity and outdated cultural ideas should be questioned by instructors. All curricula (not
just particular civics modules) should include the aspects of education as permeating
themes.
Related to this, students should be encouraged to understand that they are accountable for
their actions. As higher education students they need to realize that they have been privileged
above most others in Ethiopia who have not had the investment of long term education, many
of whom, with the right support and background, would have also benefited from higher
education. It is recommended that the instruction and curriculum in the new HEIs should
encourage students to think about how they might demonstrate their commitment to their
country and how their studies might be used to benefit others who are less fortunate.
If they are to satisfy the aspirations of employers and others as to the quality of graduates, the
curriculum of the institution, the pedagogy and assessment will need to focus on
communication skills: ICT; verbal communication; different forms of writing (report writing,
essay writing, prcis and so on); and presentation skills (for example, seminar leadership,
poster displays, and leaflet production). Curriculum and pedagogy should develop students
abilities to work as part of a team in various roles (team leader, project manager, group
member, group secretary, organizing officer etc.) Students should be exposed to a rich variety
of teaching and learning situations, including group projects, community tasks and
investigations, project reporting and their results should be assessed and count towards the
final qualification.

A curriculum to develop the graduates that Ethiopia needs

Practical application and problem solving
Employers of Ethiopias graduates from higher education complain that they lack abilities in
practical application and problem solving. The existing HEIs have made considerable
progress in rectifying this lack. It is much easier for new HEIs to develop programs that
specifically focus on such skills at the planning stage: they have no cherished curriculum
content that they must jettison to achieve the time for such application (doing takes much
more class contact time than telling) and the instructors have not yet developed established
ways of doing things and sets of lecture notes that only really work in a chalk and talk
situation. This means that active learning can be built into the planning of every pedagogic
process: curriculum development, teaching methods, resource purchasing and assessment.
If students are to become efficient problem solvers who can apply their knowledge in creative
and innovative ways to help solve Ethiopias development dilemmas, they need to be
equipped with certain skills and knowledge. They need to become self managers who
understand business processes and efficient working. They will also need to be independent
learners. The existing HEIs are hampered by poor libraries. Good learning resources,
especially libraries, are essential if students are to be prepared as life long learners. The new

49

HEIs do not have historic allocations of resources to contend with and can decide right from
the start to spend a smaller proportions of their budgets on administration (employing
relatively few, well paid, multi functional, expert administrative staff,) and more on learning
resources. However, in the early stages investment in libraries through HEIs recurrent
budgets will not be enough. It is recommended that up front substantial investment in good
libraries should be an early priority of Government and a pre-requisite before a new program
is opened.
Practical problem solving and practical application require students who have developed the
ability to express themselves, creativity and risk taking. Contrary to many peoples thinking,
these are not merely innate traits or only possible to develop early in life. It is recommended
that HEI staff help students develop problem solving and practical application skills through
management of discussion, more sophisticated pedagogic techniques (such as small peer
group discussions pyramiding to larger group feedback) and giving praise and positive
feedback to those who experiment with non traditional ideas and who are willing to express
minority opinions. The new HEIs will have staff who have not been acculturated to didactic
methods of instruction and who can be more open to students who disagree with them and
who may develop ideas of their own and be willing to express them.
Work-place relevance
Another feature of the higher education offered by the new HEIs that those interviewed wish
to see is more work experience and work readiness. It is recommended that work placements
are integrated into all programs. Finding work places for thousands of undergraduates and
postgraduate students is not easy. It helps if the students internee is perceived to be
potentially of use to the employer. This may require changes to the structure of the courses to
allow students to spend a concentrated period of time in a workplace (say a semester) and for
outcomes from work placements to be assessed and count towards the final grade. It also
helps if the placement objectives are structured so that the internee is providing a useful
service to the employer (perhaps studying a problem or process of use to the employer and
producing a set of solutions to solve these). Placements also require a long term relationship
with employers that includes their involvement in the life of the HEI, in the design and
delivery of curriculum and in the assessment of the quality of the learning environment
provided by placements.
The provision of more work experience is important, but insufficient by itself. In South Africa
the system has been reconfigured to take account of the changing nature of knowledge
production in today's world. Higher education in Ethiopia must also acquire an increasing
vocational component to ensure that it remains relevant. It is recommended that the new HEIs
develop new inter-disciplinary and professional qualification structures. Most work places do
not require graduates that have only one skill. A graduate with both engineering and business
studies (or business with a foreign language) may be more useful than one that has studied
only one of these subjects. This implies that the new HEIs should offer two subject degrees
and other qualifications (perhaps 50:50 or major/minor) as well as single subject work with a
fair amount of training in interdisciplinary working. Such multi-disciplinary degrees are
facilitated by a true modular structure and are common in more developed higher education
systems.
It is clear that at present Ethiopias industry lacks technical people: Generally there is not the
variety of staff to work in the different sectors of industry which the Government has given
priority such as textiles, garments, leather and food processing. There is weak support for
industrial sectors: Even though there are organizations established to support industries like
the Quality and Standard Authority and the Leather Technology Institute, they dont have
enough skilled and well trained staff. Thus the new HEIs should produce train people that can
work at all supervisory levels within industry and at national level. Some of these will be

50

skilled at higher education certificate or associate degree level, some at bachelors degree and
some at post graduate level.
If the new HEIs are to achieve the kind of education that interviewees say is needed for
Ethiopias development strategy, they will need to think carefully about their assessment
strategy. Examinations and tests are useful in checking students coverage of the syllabus, but
they are relatively ineffective measures of their problem solving abilities, team work
capability or of many communication skills. It is therefore recommended that examinations
and tests should be combined with other assessment techniques: group work and team
assessment, peer assessment, self assessment (these last three can be moderated by the
instructor), oral presentation, report writing, leaflet and advertisement production,
independent community-based projects, reflective diaries and competence-based skills
assignments that test a wide range of work-related skills and abilities.
Ethiopian focus
The Government strategy for the development of the new HEIs includes linkages with HEIs
in the more developed world, especially the USA. Such linkages will undoubtedly add value,
but they cannot be the sole or main answer to curriculum development. Interviewees
repeatedly stated that the curriculum in the existing HEIs was too closely based in Addis
Ababa Universitys curriculum and on curriculum developed abroad for other times and
places. This means that graduates are not well suited to work in Ethiopias society and
economy, especially in the rural areas where most poverty reduction must take place. For this
reason, it is recommended that the starting point for curriculum development should be
Ethiopias regional and national situation, context and needs. Engineers could therefore be
encouraged to think about the design of agricultural implements that are affordable and
suitable for farmers without special training, biologists could think about the development and
cultivation of more productive strains of tef and other traditional foods, health workers could
be encouraged to think about community-based approaches to harmful traditional practices
and so on, all focused on Ethiopian context
One aspect of the Ethiopian context is that all higher education is conducted in English. In
addition, English is considered an important skill in the business community. Students in the
new HEIs are likely to have a lower level of outcome grade from secondary education than
those in the existing universities. For these reasons, the new HEIs should give special
attention to the development of English language skills, particularly in the context of the
subject. They might therefore consider putting on core models in areas such as English for
scientists, English for business and so on.
One of the key problems in Ethiopia is the disadvantage that women and girls suffer in
society and the economy. Members of certain ethnic minorities also suffer discrimination.
Some existing HEIs have developed imaginative support and affirmative action programs for
female students. This is not enough however; HEIs are educating tomorrows leaders of
communities and the economy. This implies that ethnic and gender awareness, a
determination to take action to combat discrimination and abuse should be permeating themes
in all curricula and that these are important for male as well as female students. The aspiring
manager can learn what s/he can do to develop good equal opportunities policies; the health
worker can learn what community actions are effective to promote female health
empowerment; the science students can be encouraged to work on problems that would make
womens lives more productive and easier and so on.
HIV/AIDS is potentially devastating to Ethiopias higher education system and its economy
and society. HAPCO estimates that at least 1.5 million are infected already and that the urban
infection rate is 12.6% (most HEIs are to be in urban areas): students, teachers and young
people are in high risk categories. AIDS has reduced the life expectancy in Ethiopia from 53
to 46 years. The South African experience of HIV/AIDS indicates a range of actions that

51

should be taken by all HEIs. One of the most important of these is integrating HIV and AIDS
into the curriculum with appropriate depth and scope and paying special attention to distance
learning. This requires HEIs to provide integrated and on-going training on how to integrate
HIV and AIDS policy into the curriculum and course material.
Instructors and students should focus on improving understanding of behavior change models
and learning. The new HEIs should link HIV and AIDS policy to formal teaching structures
(and where possible, be governed by a formal committee). It should be the responsibility of
managers at every level to develop curriculum integration policies to increase infusion across
courses. Subject associations and managers should look for opportunities for replicating best
practices amongst national and international higher education institutions.

Research and consultancy

It has been noted elsewhere (see for example Ashcroft 2004) that Ethiopias higher education
system is very weak in terms of the quality and volume of its research activity and output and
that this weakness should be rectified. Developed countries rely heavily on university-based
research as a key engine of economic development. Universities are centers of applied and
pure research and are considered separate from training colleges and polytechnics that have a
mission based more exclusively on teaching. One of the drivers behind improved university
research is funding. For example in the UK, Australia and Hong Kong, universities are
rewarded financially for the volume and quality of the research they produce. Such
incentivization in Ethiopia would require an organization (such as the HERQA or HESC in
Ethiopia) to develop criteria and a process so that research outcomes of each HEI can be rated
and funding for research allocated according to outcomes. The link between research
outcomes and funding has been an important incentive that has led to a noticeable increase in
the quality and economic value of research in many countries. From the start, the new HEIs
should develop a research agenda that meets the needs of the country in terms of quality and
economic relevance. It is therefore recommended that such a system of results-based funding
be developed by the HESC for research in Ethiopias higher education system and approved
by the Government.
Another key driver for the development of research in most countries is the role of a research
culture in enabling HEIs to upgrade to university status. For example in the UK, a college of
higher education can upgrade to a university college only when it has satisfied the national
Quality Assurance Agency (QAA) for higher education about the range and volume of its
research and teaching capacity. The criteria for the achievement of university status includes
the expectation that research is a key aspect of staff appraisal and staff development and
around half of staff are recognized contributors to subject associations, learned societies and
professional bodies. In addition, around one third of academic staff are expected to have
recent personal experience of research activity in another university institution, for instance
acting as external examiners for research degrees, serving on validation and review groups or
contributing to collaborative research projects. In addition around one third of academic staff
should be regularly producing research papers of national or international standing.
Institutions applying for university status in the UK are also expected to have clear and
adequate research degree regulations and a management structure for research activities.
Normally the HEI should have supervised more than 30 doctoral students to completion.
It is clear that such a system of tough criteria for the achievement (or maintenance) of
university status would have the dual advantages of improving the quality and quantity of
research activity and improving the low number of research degree graduates from Ethiopias
higher education system. It would require higher education institutions to work more
cooperatively (for example in supervising research students) and develop subject associations,
research conferences related to particular subject areas and other fora. Slowly this would raise
the expectation that HEI academic staff actually fulfill the contractual requirement to spend
25% of their working week undertaking research. Academic staff not so doing might move on

52

to a teaching only contract with 25% more credit hours expected of them. The increased
research activity would have the additional benefit of ensuring that HEI teaching is informed
by cutting edge research undertaken in Ethiopia. It is therefore recommended that the
HERQA develops criteria for the awarding of university status that include minimum levels of
research activity and output, and in the longer term develops criteria for reconfirming of
university status to those HEIs awarded such status before the criteria were developed.
One example of an area of important research is the tendency towards decentralization,
including the possible impact of specific geographical and cultural contexts upon centrally
determined policies.
It is mentioned above that HIV/AIDS is an essential curriculum focus. Research into the
subject is equally important. Amongst the areas that Ethiopia could learn most from other
African countries is research into HIV/AIDS. This is a crucial area that the new HEIs should
address if they are to serve the development needs of the country. For example, the Womens
University could explore gender issues and HIV/AIDS rates of infection, effective means of
empowering women to resist high risk situations, how to change mens attitudes to their
sexual partners, information strategies that are effective with rural women and so on. The
Development University could look at HIV/AIDS as a development issue and relate it to
economic and social interventions that might be effective and the social impact of the
epidemic and the psycho-social implications of the epidemic. The Health and Community
College could look at what makes effective multi-professional interventions in the prevention
and treatment of HIV/AIDS and associated diseases. The Pedagogic and Teacher Training
University could investigate effective strategies to change young peoples attitudes and
behavior and the Semera College might look at the ways that Adult and Basic Education can
be effectively used to spread awareness and empowerment in dispersed communities and
teaching materials to support this.
In South Africa it became apparent that institutional managers rank research as their lowest
priority in relation to HIV/AIDS. This runs contrary to higher educations mission in relation
to knowledge creation. Institutional leaders should not be misled by the desire to make more
immediate changes into thinking that research in this area is in any way a luxury. Visible
changes in the responses to the epidemic in terms of lowering the risk of infection, changes in
sexual and social behaviors and skills in managing the impact of the epidemic are important,
but cannot be achieved by direct action alone. Effective action and intervention depend upon
information and knowledge developed through research. It is recommended that the leaders in
the new HEIs should develop research and ethics policies that are appropriate for HIV and
AIDS research.
Leaders in those of the new HEIs with a research mission should emphasize the importance of
output in research, set up and train ethics committees and develop incentives for researchers
focusing on development issues. They should develop research partnerships with internal and
external partners to enhance knowledge sharing and collaboration (including funding
opportunities for interdisciplinary research) and develop mechanisms for tracking and
disseminating research outputs at institutional and sector level.
The developing world relies heavily on knowledge developed and disseminated by the north.
This creates problems of relevance to the African context and access because of the expense
of journal subscriptions. There should be a donor HEI partnership to develop capacity in HEIs
to generate and package local knowledge. This requires publishing houses and research
editors and facilitators. In addition, better access to ICT is essential in todays informationbased economy and the knowledge society. HEI staff and students in Ethiopia must be able to
access global information and apply it towards the solution of Ethiopian development
challenges. ICT must support student research experience, and academic staff research
activities.

53

Chapter 5: Resources
Resources for new HEIs must compete with other important areas of expenditure. For this
reason, it is recommended that the system develop several alternative sources of funding to
include core funding provided by the Government through the funding formula; an end to
subsidies for food and lodging during study for all but the poorest students; up-front fees for
some students; cost sharing after graduation; income generation by HEIs and specific support
for time bound activities for the establishment or strengthening of the 13 new higher
education institutions (to be provided by the Government with the help of donors). It is
recommended that more of the higher education funding should come from students and their
families, with a system of means testing and vouchers to protect the poorer students. This
chapter considers these alternatives and also other resource issues such as staffing and the role
of technology.

Finance
The World Bank report of 2004 indicates that the growth of Ethiopia's higher education
system is outstripping the revenue available to sustain it, and that a medium term funding gap
will exist over the next ten years until income from the graduate tax begins to produce a
meaningful flow. The World Bank report was complied before the notion of 13 new
universities was developed: the situation will consequently be exacerbated unless new and
sustainable flows of funding are identified. Consequently, starting small and going slowly
may be the best means of developing the new HEIs. In any case, increased cost-sharing by
students would help to ease the potential crisis of funding and educational quality.
There is no universal theoretical or empirical justification for cost-sharing as it depends on the
circumstances of each country. Indeed, a number of European countries continue to provide
higher education relatively free of charge because they can afford to and because enrollment
growth is slow. However, there is a long-standing debate surrounding the concept of costsharing that derives from rate of return economic analysis of education. No one disputes that
individuals receive private benefits from higher education, or that the state's public interest
also benefits. Much seems to depend on the particular country and the moment in time that
the analysis is undertaken (e.g. whether it is a period of economic growth or stagnation).
Free higher education benefits students in college but not those denied a place because of a
lack of funding to expand the system. Hauptman (1999) points out that most countries charge
fees or use other forms of cost recovery (for example, a percentage of the costs of educating a
student). He recommends that not more than 5% of the higher education funding should go to
student aid (i.e. to the cost of food and lodgings). Teferra (1999) points out that unless
students make a more substantial contribution to the costs of higher education, the poorer
families will subsidize the children of the middle class. These children in turn will have
higher income generating capacity because of their higher education.
In Ethiopia, such a cost recovery system is relatively simple because the amount provided for
each student by Government will be covered by a formula weighted by the subject and level
of study. One method of cost recovery to supplement the graduate tax would be to set the fees
in relation to the GDP for a median family. The National Household Income, Consumption
and Expenditure (HICE) Survey of 1999 indicates that 71% of university students come from
households with the highest 20% of incomes. Another method is to set fees in relation to a
threshold for family income: only those students whose family income is above a threshold
pay up-front fees, either at a flat rate or at a rate determined by that income.
It is likely to become necessary for the HEIs to charge for services such as food and lodging.
Means testing will make cost sharing more acceptable but, since good records of income may

54

not be available and the informal economy flourishes, proxy measures such as parents
occupation and educational level may be used. The Government is recommended to set up
such a means testing system. Special attention may need to be paid to females since families
may be less willing to make sacrifices for their education.
It must be assumed that families would have to spend an amount for students board if living
at home. It might be reasonable to expect that students whose family income is above
subsistence level should pay for their food and lodging in addition to cost recovery for part of
their tuition costs. Thus very poor students would be provided with a dormitory room free of
charge or receive an amount for lodging costs in town. All students would be expected to buy
their food from university or other catering outlets, but those students from families on
subsistence incomes would receive an amount sufficient to cover this cost, in the form of food
vouchers. Food vouchers would have the advantage that the students would not be able to use
the allowance except for food and thus would be less likely to find themselves in poor
nutritional health as a result of financial mismanagement. They could spend the vouchers in
the higher education outlets or other outlets. Private catering providers would be able to
redeem the value of the vouchers with the higher education institution.
The system of student aid vouchers only for those that need them would relieve some costs at
the margins from college budgets, allow students choice as to which outlets to buy their food
and make it more likely that rival establishments to university catering facilities would be set
up and thus relieve the burden of providing food from the HEI authorities. It also means that
shortcomings in the food provided would be dealt with by students taking their custom
elsewhere rather than though student protests.
The drop-out rate among higher education students has been between 10% and 15%, with the
largest losses occurring in the first year of study (Abebayehu, 1998). This seems to be due to
difficulties in adjusting to campus life away from home. It is probable that the new HEIs will
recruit lower ability students than the established HEIs. For these and other reasons such as
labor market needs, it is recommended that many of the new institutions should recruit to the
one and two year programs mostly from the local community. This would encourage females
whose families might not be happy for them to live far from home (at least in the first years of
study) and would enable the new HEIs to have little provision for residency or food. As
localized institutions, their students would be expected to either reside at home or find private
provision for room and board. This would allow managers to focus on the core business of the
HEI. This would have the added advantage that students studying at a university near to their
home can remain with their family and would be less likely to be exposed to HIV/AIDS.
There is evidence from AIDS organizations that living apart from parents and family leaves
students more vulnerable to a lifestyle that could endanger their health.
Students in the affiliated colleges may not be as well qualified on entry as their university
counterparts and so may have to study for a longer academic year to achieve the same
standard. This should be reflected in the funding formula allocations. A weighting of +20%
should be allowed for students on extended (say 40 week) academic year programs.
HEIs should be encouraged to admit some paying students over and above those allocated by
Government and to set up special courses and groups for these students. HEIs could use the
profit element of such programs to provide performance premiums to staff reaching a
minimum level of performance. It is important in such income generating schemes that the
fees are high enough to generate real profit after all costs are paid. It is better to have fewer
fee paying students with a real profit premium than many that are making a marginal profit
only.
Teferra (1999) notes a World Bank study that shows that $4 billion is spent on foreign
technical assistance in Africa. Local expertise rather than international experts should fill the
technical assistance positions paid for by donors. Local HEIs should increase their share of
such resources through aggressive marketing and strong entrepreneurial leadership.

55

Staff
The World Bank (2004) concluded in its report that the supply of lecturers with graduate
degrees was likely to be an even bigger constraint than financing to expansion of the higher
education system. Adding another 13 universities will certainly compound this problem. This
section of the report makes some proposals to address this problem. Saint (2004) points out
that as the tertiary system has expanded, the proportion of academic staff possessing a PhD
has declined from 28% in 1995/1996 to just 9% in 2002/2003. If the new HEIs were to all
include third year undergraduate degrees and above and if they do not adapt their pedagogy to
make the best use of scarce PhD resources, this downward trend will prevent an acceptable
quality being achieved in higher education.
It is recommended that in the new HEIs a limited number of postgraduate degree holders
should be well paid as master instructors on a higher salary scale than is traditional for
instructors and that these master instructors should design the programs, give the lead
lectures and do lesson plans for the seminars. These seminars may then be led by a team of
graduate assistants according to the lesson plan. Similarly, assessments may be marked by the
graduate assistants according to guidelines provided by the master instructor, who can
second mark a proportion to ensure that they are using the guidelines consistently and fairly.
The present strategy to staff the new HEIs is to recruit a number of instructors and managers
from overseas, and in particular from India. This can be a short term solution, but in the
longer term, staff will need to be supplied by the Ethiopian higher education system. Some
progress is being made toward this through a rapid expansion of post graduate training,
particularly in Addis Ababa University. Such training will also need to encompass the needs
of the next generation of middle and senior managers in the HEIs.
Priority must be given to strengthening the existing universities and increasing the number
and quality of faculty and managers in post graduate departments. Foreign study should be
less widely used. It seems likely that such arrangements encourage brain drain and create
skilled and knowledgeable individuals of more of use to the developed world than Ethiopia.
Rather, donor funds should be sought and used more effectively and intensively to develop
and improve in-country post graduate and other training.
It is recommended that Addis Ababa University, Adama University and other universities
providing post graduate training specifically geared to the needs of higher education
instructors develop innovatory and multi disciplinary approaches to these programs. The
evidence from interviews and other data sources suggests that postgraduate training that is
relevant for Ethiopias higher education instructors should encompass more than subject study
and research methodology (important though these are). It should also include the
entrepreneurial and employment applications of the subject, perhaps through a work based
projects, and pedagogic approaches to the subject. This implies that graduate schools within
the training university will need to work on an integrated program that uses high level skills
from the education faculty and other subject departments.
Post graduate training should include grant application writing. Ethiopias higher education
system is likely to be reliant on donor funding to a considerable extent for some years to
come. In addition, the development of consultancy depends upon people who have knowledge
and skills to sell, but also on their ability to propose solutions using their skills and
knowledge to potential clients. The DIF (World Bank Development Innovation Fund)
experience shows that the level of expertise in HEIs is very low, but training and coaching can
develop skills remarkably quickly.
It has been stated above that HIV/AIDS is an important focus for curriculum and research. It
is also a management and staff development issue. Evidence from South Africa suggests that
there may be resistance amongst staff with regard to the area of HIV and AIDS. These
concerns will need to be addressed and overcome within post graduate training in order to

56

achieve the desired level of integration of HIV and AIDS issues into the core responsibilities
of academics and the work they do. Initial instructor training may be a most effective
instrument for change in policy and practice with respect to HIV/AIDS in the curriculum.
If HEI managers are to be effective in the fight against HIVAIDS they will need training in
key management competencies that will enable them to develop and manage HIV/AIDS
programs in relation to curriculum development, pedagogy, student services, and employment
practices. Prevention services for staff and students should go beyond awareness raising;
managers will need to understand and lead the HEIs role, responding proactively to the
epidemic as it unfolds. Examples of this include: providing and facilitating treatment; training
and workplace programs in line with the strategic plan; the importance of involving all
stakeholders (including communities); and the HEIs role in encouraging regional
collaboration and networking on initiatives, perhaps supported by some open and distance
learning materials from the developed world.

Other resources
Better and more carefully planned use of technology is one way to strengthen existing
universities and of extending those benefits to new institutions at little additional cost. Olsen,
(2003) states that on-line delivery has the potential to meet demand for higher education, but
only if problems of access, quality assurance and level and standards are addressed. However,
Oketch (2004) notes that the planning of virtual learning is complex in the African context:
the African Virtual University in its sixth year had to scale back its original plans. ICT is not a
panacea. It is recommended that HEIs gradually develop ICT as a learning tool, probably in
the context of mixed modes of learning (email, internet materials, paper-based materials,
audio and visual tapes, intensively taught weekend sessions/summer schools and telephone
tutorials have been found to be a successful mix for distance learning in most countries). ICTbased learning is not automatically more cost effective than traditionally taught courses. ICT
becomes economical when courses and modules are sufficiently in demand to recruit many
thousands, rather than a few tens of students. Student numbers in the UK Open University in
2001 were 188,629 of which 30,000 were studying overseas, making it many times larger in
terms of student numbers than any other UK university. However, only around 5% of its
programs rely entirely on Web-based learning. More than half incorporate ICT-enhanced
learning, but only as an addition to other forms of delivery, not as a replacement for them.
The issue of accreditation and quality assurance is important. Virtual learning systems and
their outcomes should be assessed using the same standards as traditionally delivered
programs. Economies of scale are possible and necessary with HEIs sharing modules. In
many cases these ICT programs should be developed co-operatively with the Ethiopian Open
University. Where there is insufficient demand to justify the costs of developing modules in
Ethiopias HEIs, as has been found to be the case in Africa for science-based subjects, a
partnership with an international HEI should be developed. Where modules are used from
HEIs outside of Ethiopia, the HEI using them as part of its program must take responsibility
for monitoring that they continue to offer sufficient quality and relevance.
Various interviewees pointed out that ICT has the potential to revolutionize administration. It
is recommended that all administrative systems in the new HEIs should be ICT-based. To
facilitate this, donors should provide technical and financial assistance to the new HEIs so
they can collectively set up systems for procurement and supplies; asset monitoring;
transport; estates management; finance; registry; human resource management; libraries;
committee records and other matters. Interviewees felt it was important that access to ICT
should be part of the planning for the new HEIs. The Government should ensure that all new
HEIs have broadband quality access to ICT in all classrooms; instructor offices;
administrative offices; classrooms and libraries and the hardware to make these functional.

57

Conclusion
The HESC was not asked to consider whether there should be 13 new HEIs, whether the
timeframe is appropriate nor whether the chosen locations are appropriate, and so these
questions were not asked as part of the data collection. Nevertheless, it soon became clear that
while some official (Government) sources were supportive of the notion of 13 new
universities or university colleges, other interviewees and sources of information were not.
Employers, NGOs, students, donors and others were more supportive of a new form of HEI,
offering shorter programs, geared to local needs and much less expensive per student.
Interviews and other research revealed that at present there is a gap in the qualifications
framework that causes a mismatch between graduates and labor market needs. This gap could
be filled by sub-degree institutions. There is also serious, almost universal concern about the
threat to quality posed by the rapid expansion in bachelor level programs. For this reason the
study concluded that only three of the new HEIs should be universities/university colleges
offering bachelor level programs, with the others being affiliated higher education colleges
offering sub degree (12+2 and 12+1) programs.
Even if most of the new HEIs offer lower level programs, the concerns about quality in higher
education post-expansion remain and require proper attention. An affiliating relationship
between the new HEIs and a more experienced university will help to ensure a comparability
of standards and the acceptance of a new qualifications and credit accumulation framework.
Nevertheless, there are real resource problems raised by the development of the new HEIs
that remain. There is a need for targeted solutions or quality will be compromised. If these
HEIs are to be viable, institutions will need to be specialist with relatively few large
programs; expert staff will have to be used more effectively and better paid; students will
have to pay more towards their education and resources such as ICT will have to be fully
utilized. Even with such economies of scale and effective use of resources, there remain
doubts about the viability of some of the HEIs, especially those planned for Jijiga and
Semera.
It is also clear from the research that new forms of pedagogy and curricula are needed to
support Ethiopias development. These include new subjects and mixes of subjects within
programs and an emphasis on the skills and qualities that underpin creative thinking and
action, entrepreneurialism and problem solving. These skills and qualities, and the need to
tackle social problems such as harmful traditional practices, gender and ethnic discrimination
and HIV/AIDS require new forms of training and orientation amongst the staff in the new
HEIs.
The new HEIs should be closely tied into their region but also complement a national system.
This implies that each should have its own mission and niche market, catering for local needs
and local students in terms of programs and research. This does not mean that they should be
generalist institutions meeting all (or even most) local needs: many of a regions needs will be
catered for by institutions recruiting at a national level. Rather it implies a close and
synergistic relationship with the local economy, social conditions, and other sectors of
education.
With a re-conceptualizing of the functions of higher education in Ethiopia, the new HEIs will
have a good chance to fulfill their potential role in poverty reduction and the promotion of
development and they will represent an acceptable opportunity cost for the rest of the
education sector.

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Appendix 1: Main recommendations

The study results in a number of recommendations. The main ones are listed briefly below.

Structure of the system

1. A new ladder of qualifications should be established (by Proclamation if necessary)
as follows:
a. 12+1: Higher Education Certificate
b. 12+2: Associate Degree
c. 12+3: Bachelors Degree
d. Bachelors+1: Post Graduate Certificate
e. Bachelors+2: MA/MBA/MSc
f.

Bachelors+3: MPhil

g. PhD
and HEIs should be allowed to admit suitably qualified TVET students to higher
education diplomas/associate degrees.
2. In the short term, until the new qualifications framework is established, the new HEIs
should offer a Higher Education Diploma after two years of post grade 12 study.
3. Those students who have achieved well at 10+2 and 10+3 level should be admitted
directly into the new HEIs and those that have achieved exceptionally well at 10+3
should be admitted into the second year of their higher education diploma/associate
degree programs.
4. Those new HEIs with students at both Higher Education Certificate/Associate Degree
and Bachelors Degree may be controlled either locally or nationally depending on
the proportion of students in the different programs. Transitional arrangements should
be set in place whereby the Federal Government transfers funding to the Region in
return for a say in how the HEIs are developed (say, through places on the Colleges
Board).
5. Students should be allowed to choose their subject and university. Ethnic and regional
diversity should be maintained by recruitment targets for each HEI for out-of-region
students and/or recruitment from particular regions.
6. Those new HEIs established that are not based on well established faculties of an
existing HEI (i.e. all the new HEIs apart from those at Dilla, Adama and Dire Dawa)
should be affiliated colleges of an existing HEIs for at least the first five years of their
establishment.
7. It is recommended that the Ministry of Education should ensure that the following are
in place and documented before admitting any students to the new colleges:

A clear program of study for all subjects/programs to which students are admitted
that covers 2 years of study

A clear schedule of assessments for all subjects/programs to which students are

admitted that covers 2 years of study

A clear policy for all subjects/programs to which students are admitted that
covers when and how curriculum, teaching, resources and facilities are to be
evaluated and monitored

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There are academic regulations that cover all academic matters in place for the
institution including student assessment, the allocation of marks and their
contribution to the final award of a qualification, approval of examinations
papers, the operation of examination boards, student appeals and other rights.

8. Affiliated colleges should be permitted to offer the final year of bachelors programs
when certain conditions have been met in that subject:

They have a pattern of staff qualifications for instructors that conforms with
Government guidelines for HEIs in terms of the proportion of bachelor degree
holders, masters degree holders and PhD holders.

They have graduated at least two cohorts and at least 100 students from two year
(associate degree level) program(s)

The proportion of ex patriot staff does not exceed 20% in either management or
teaching.

They have established suitable academic regulations and statutes to regulate the
program(s) that they offer.

The institutional set up, quality assurance systems and individual provision in the
subjects in which they wish to offer bachelor degrees has been certified as
satisfactory by HERQA during at least one assessment visit.

They have established a research culture, a significant proportion of staff as

research active and a research output in terms of publications and funded projects
suitable for a university

9. Once they have graduated students in a degree program for at least three years; and
are offering education and training in different professions and programs (see
Article19 of the Proclamation), affiliated colleges would be eligible to apply for
university college status.
10. The affiliating university should normally be the nearest of the existing universities
and should provide a variety of support during the early years of the affiliated
colleges existence (advice and guidance, staff training and development and help
develop curriculum and quality systems and so on).
11. Those students who have attained a grade average that the affiliating university deems
appropriate (say 2.5) should progress directly into the third year of a bachelor degree
at the affiliating university.
12. During the period of affiliated status, the President of the affiliating university should
have a seat on the Board of the affiliated college.
13. Each subject department in the affiliated college should have an advisory panel to act
as a steering group for the development of curricula and quality systems that should
include members of the relevant subject departments of the affiliating university, local
employers and TVET managers or heads of department.
14. All Boards of the new HEIs should have members from both Regional and Federal
Authorities.
15. The new HEIs should focus on a narrow subject range and a narrow range of levels
within them. The new HEIs should be much more specialist, having large specialist
resources and facilities and enrolling many hundreds of students on each of the few
programs offered.
16. A two tier system of higher education should be developed: full-term
universities/university colleges with special emphasis and post graduate programs in
a limited number of areas and a sub-set of two year higher education institutions

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which provide a program focused on preparing for advanced technical and

supervisory levels of employment.

Options for regional HEIs

17. Each new HEI should focus on a few, large programs .
18. Dire Dawa should become the National Womens University of Ethiopia (recruiting
only women students) The program offered should include entrepreneurship, and
leadership and management for women, business and management with Arabic for
business as one of the options, food technology, chemical engineering, design focused
on industrial and aesthetic design and, in the longer term, mechanical and electrical
engineering.
19. Adama should become the National Pedagogic and Technical University specializing
in:
a. The training of instructors for TVET both at undergraduate and post graduate
levels
b. Research into TVET related issues (e.g. Ethiopias labor needs, business
consultancy needs, appropriate TVET course structures, and how TVET
students learn)
c. The training of trainers of field workers in areas such as health, informal
education and on-the-job trainers in office practice, ICT, adult and continuing
education
d. Setting up and hosting a National Association for Adult and Continuing
Education, developing teaching materials and undertaking research into adult
education and pedagogy in the non-formal sector
e. The inclusion of entrepreneurship in all courses and close links with the
world of work
f. Technical studies and applied science
At a later date Adama University might develop as a center for masters degree and
PhD training in higher education pedagogy for technical and scientific subjects.
20. Dilla should become the University of Development and Indigenous Studies for
Ethiopia focused on agricultural sciences, health sciences, formal and non formal
education and integrated development studies. It should be in large part a distributed
HEI with considerable distance learning programs and local outposts. In the early
stages, Dillas should establish programs in cultural and indigenous studies, teacher
education in civil education, computer science and business (with Swahili for
business) and a program for health educators.
21. The other new institutions should be affiliated to an existing university (generally
their nearest university) which will provide governance, quality assurance and
curriculum support.
22. Madda Walabu (Bale-Robe) should be established as an Affiliated Higher Education
College of Health and Community Studies. It should develop curricula that focus on
Ethiopias social and health needs. It should specialize in interdisciplinary team
working and the interface between the health and social structures of communities. It
should have an education faculty and undertake practically-based research. It should
develop some minor specialisms where these relate closely to the region, such as
tourism.
23. Sodo should develop as an Affiliated Higher Education College of Science and
Health. It should have links with the Open University of Ethiopia in order to become
a center of knowledge about the technical and pedagogic aspects of distance
education in health fields. It should focus on a few subjects in the first instance,
including natural resource science, rural science and family health.

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24. Mizan/Tepi should be an Affiliated Higher Education College of Technology and

Agriculture. Programs should include teacher training in technical subjects, animal
health, dairy science and agro-economics. In the medium term courses could be
developed in product design and manufacturing based on agricultural products:
leather working, paper production and food processing.
25. Debre Markos should be an Affiliated Higher Education Health and Agriculture
College. Courses should include agriculture, the training of health officers and nurses.
The HEI should be equipped with up to date agricultural research facilities to develop
research facilities and courses on agriculture which look at changing farming
practices; plant and animal husbandry; pests and plant diseases; agro chemical and
organic approaches; and land/environmental management.
26. Since Benshangul will not have its own HEI within the region, Debra Markos should
also plan to meet the Benshangul regions most pressing higher level training needs
27. The decision to locate HEIs in Semera and Jijgia should be reconsidered.
28. If the decision is not to go ahead with these new HEI in Semera and Jijiga at the
present time, the new HEIs in Tigray and Oromia and Adama and Mekele
Universities should be given the mandate to seek to meet the most pressing of Somali
and Afars regional higher level training needs.
29. If Semera is nevertheless established, it should be an Affiliated Higher Education
Teachers and Agricultural College. It should offer pastoral agriculture, animal health
and production and teacher training (especially focused on the management of non
formal and adult and basic education and training and developing teaching materials).
In the longer term, courses in mineral exploitation (particularly salts and sulphur)
might be developed.
30. Semera should be provided with special and very advantageous funding to make it
sustainable as a quality institution
31. If Jijiga is nevertheless established, it should be an Affiliated General Higher
Education College, focused on teacher training, engineering and mining and health
studies. In the longer term, if the college proves viable, courses could be introduced
in public administration, water engineering and arid agriculture.
32. Wellega/Nekempte should start as an Affiliated General Higher Education College
with mining and water engineering, economics, accounting and forestry. At a later
date programs in agriculture and animal science may be developed.
33. Since Gambella will not have an HEI within its region, Wellega/Nekempte should
also look to Gambellas needs for higher level training and seek to meet these as par
as possible within the curriculum.
34. Axum should develop as an Affiliated Higher Education General College with
programs in teacher training, health sciences and archeology. In the medium term it
might develop tourism courses, especially focused on quality issues and marketing.
35. Dessie should be an Affiliated Higher Education Industrial and Vocational College,
and open programs in industrial engineering and management. Later it should
develop into other infrastructure-related areas. In the medium term these might
include financial and insurance sectors; telecommunications; urban planning; and
slum upgrading In the long term, courses should be developed linked to industrial
infrastructure development.
36. Debre Birhan should start as an Affiliated Higher Education College Social and
Vocational Studies and start by developing programs in the training of trainers and
managers for adult and continuing education programs in the formal and non formal

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sectors, and cooperate with the National Pedagogic and Technical University in
developing a National Association for Adult and Continuing Education, developing
teaching materials and researching what forms of adult and continuing education
produce the best social and economic returns. In addition, Debre Birhan should
introduce secondary teacher training. The college should also support local business
by developing programs in economics and accounting. In the medium term, Debre
Behan should open courses in public administration.
Expansion of existing Universities
37. Existing HEIs should expand or the following subjects to serve nearby regions:
Alemaya University:
Medicine
Management
Engineering
Business
Teacher training
Natural science (post graduate
Mining
Agriculture.
Mekelle University
Medicine
Tourism
Management
Mining
Engineering
Jimma University
Law
Jimma and Debub Universities
Veterinary medicine
Agro-forestry
Medicine
Civil engineering
Addis Ababa, Jimma, Gondor, Debub and Mekelle Universities should bring in
programs to upgrade health workers to degree level, who could then act as leaders
and trainers within community programs. They should develop shortened training to
MD (perhaps 3 years) for those who had a relevant bachelors degree (e.g. biological
science, nursing, and health officer).
Curriculum principles
38. The new HEIs should organize their programs into true modular courses as follows:

Each program has a range of modules, some of which are required for an
award and some of which are optional
Students must take a specified number of modules at different levels
(generally level one modules are taken in year one of the program, level two
in year two and so on)
Some level two or three modules will have prerequisite level one modules
that must be taken and passed (for instance, a Arabic for business basic level

63

module might be required for entry into an Arabic for business intermediate
level module)
Different programs may share common modules (for example an economics
program may share some modules with a business program)
Students can take single subject or two subject/joint degrees (major/minor or
equal)
All modules require the same amount of students study time and all have
similar weight of assessment.

39. The affiliating universities and affiliated colleges should develop a credit transfer and
accumulation system that allows modules taken in the college to count towards
degrees offered in the affiliating university
40. The new HEIs should engage in consultation with local and national stakeholders
over curriculum, pedagogy and assessment.
41. There should be a recommended curriculum development and benchmarking process,
developed by HERQA. There should be benchmarks that indicate some minimum
outcome standards in broad subject families. These should not be so detailed as to
prevent considerable local variation in curricula.
42. Different HEIs should specialize in catering for students with particular disabilities.
43. There should be Centers of Excellence developed (not just at postgraduate level) in
order to provide competition and encourage quality education at each level and
specialist research.
44. Students of the new HEIs should be knowledgeable in HIV/AIDS prevention and
believe that it is possible to eradicate the disease. This spirit of determination and
optimism should be developed through all curricula.
Pedagogy
45. Academic Development Resource Centers should be established as the earliest
priority in each of the new HEIs and staffed by well paid academic/managers who are
given credit for at east ten teaching hours a week.
46. The new HEIs should incorporate the skills, knowledge and attitudes for
entrepreneurial activity across the curriculum and some should develop programs in
the extension program to enable students to work up a business plan and to
understand matters such as cash flow, pricing and costing and cost control as well as
developing programs in the languages of geographically close trading partners
(especially Swahili and Arabic).
47. The ethical aspects of each subject should be thematically discussed and considered
and the ethical responsibilities of students emphasized, both in their conduct as
students and as future employees and leaders/managers. This ethical awareness
should encompass gender and the need to work for gender equality and fairness,
multi-ethnic/multi-cultural education, tolerance and understanding, the need to
respect others rights and fulfill responsibilities and the ethical response to HIV/AIDS
in terms of personal responsibility and non-discriminatory attitudes. They should be
integrated into all aspects of every subject as permeating themes.
48. The new HEIs should integrate notions of democracy, participation, responsibility
and respect for cultural diversity into all aspects of the curriculum and into the
pedagogic process.
49. The instruction and curriculum in the new HEIs should encourage students to
demonstrate their commitment to their country and use their studies to benefit others
who are less fortunate.

64

50. The curriculum, pedagogy and assessment should focus on communication skills:
ICT; verbal communication; different forms of writing; and presentation skills.
Curriculum and pedagogy should develop students abilities to work as part of a team
in various roles (team leader, group member, group secretary, organizing officer etc.)
Students should be exposed to a variety of teaching and learning situations, including
group projects, community tasks and investigations, project reporting.
Practical application and problem solving
51. Active learning should be built into the planning of every pedagogic process:
curriculum planning, teaching methods, resource purchasing and assessment in the
new HEIs.
52. Students should to be equipped to become independent learners, self managers who
understand business processes and efficient working.
53. The new HEI staff should help students develop problem solving and practical
application skills through management of discussion and other pedagogic techniques.
54. Up front substantial investment in good libraries should be an early priority of
Government and a pre-requisite before a new program is opened.
Work-pace relevance
55. Assessed work placements should be integrated into all programs in the new HEIs.
56. HEIs should develop new inter-disciplinary and professional qualification structures:
two subject degrees and other qualifications (perhaps 50:50 or major/minor) as well
as single subject programs with a fair amount of training in interdisciplinary working.
57. The new HEIs should develop a curriculum and pedagogy where problems
identified and solved, students brain storm ideas and solutions that are out of
box, students are not over taught, but must do independent work, where they
encouraged to diagnose their own strengths and weaknesses and given credit
establishing their own action plan to rectify their weaknesses.

are
the
are
for

58. Examinations and tests should be combined with other assessment techniques: group
work and team assessment, peer assessment, self assessment, oral presentation, report
writing, leaflet and advertisement production, independent community-based
projects, reflective diaries and competence-based skills assignments.
Ethiopian focus
59. The starting point for curriculum development in the new HEIs should be Ethiopias
regional and national situation, context and needs.
60. The new HEIs should give special attention to the development of English language
skills, particularly in the context of the subject.
61. Ethnic and gender awareness, a determination to take action to combat discrimination
and abuse should be permeating themes in all curricula.
62. HIV and AIDS should be integrated into the curriculum with depth and scope and
paying special attention to delivery via distance learning.
63. The new HEIs should provide integrated and on-going training on how to integrate
HIV and AIDS policy into the curriculum and course material. Instructors and
students should focus on improving understanding of behavior change models and
learning. The new HEIs should link HIV and AIDS policy to formal teaching
structures (and where possible, be governed by a formal committee).
64. It should be the responsibility of managers at every level to develop curriculum
integration policies to increase HIV/AIDS integration across courses. Subject

65

associations and managers should look for opportunities for replicating best practices
amongst national and international higher education institutions.
Research and consultancy
65. A system of results-based funding should be developed by the HESC for research in
Ethiopias higher education system and approved by the Government.
66. HERQA should develop criteria for the awarding of university/university college
status that include minimum levels of research activity and output, and in the longer
term develop criteria for reconfirming of university status to those HEIs awarded
such status before the criteria were developed.
67. Leaders in the new HEIs should develop research and ethics policies that are
appropriate for HIV and AIDS research.
68. Leaders in those of the new HEIs with a research mission should emphasize the
importance and output of research and develop incentives for researchers focusing on
development issues. They should develop research partnerships with internal and
external partners to enhance knowledge sharing and collaboration and develop
mechanisms for tracking and disseminating research outputs at institutional and
sector level.
69. A donor/HEI partnership should be developed to strengthen capacity in HEIs to
generate and package local knowledge.
Resources
70. The system should develop several alternative sources of funding to include core
funding provided by Government through the funding formula; funding from students
themselves from an end to subsidies for food and lodging during study for all but the
poorest students; up-front fees for some students; and increased cost sharing after
graduation; income generation by HEIs and specific support for time bound activities
for the establishment or strengthening of the 13 new higher education institutions (to
be provided by the Government with the help of donors).
71. A system of means testing and vouchers should be set up to protect the poorer
students.
72. Many of the new HEIs should recruit to the one and two year programs mostly from
the local community.
73. Students with lower entry qualifications on associated degree programs should be
offered 40 week academic year programs. A weighting of +20% should be allowed in
the funding formula for students on extended academic year programs.
74. Local expertise rather than international experts should fill technical assistance
positions paid for by donors. HEIs should increase their share of such resources
through aggressive marketing and strong entrepreneurial leadership.
75. A limited number of postgraduate degree holders should be paid as master
instructors in the new HEIs on a higher salary scale than is traditional for instructors
and these master instructors should design the programs, give the lead lectures and
do lesson plans for the seminars. These seminars may then be led by a team of
graduate assistants according to the lesson plan. Assessments may be marked by the
graduate assistants according to guidelines provided by the master instructor.
76. Universities providing post graduate training specifically geared to the needs of
TVET and higher education instructors should develop innovatory and multi
disciplinary approaches to these programs encompassing subject study and research
methodology; the entrepreneurial and employment applications of the subject; and
grant application writing.

66

77. Managers in the new HEIs should be given training in key management competencies
that will enable them to develop and manage HIV/AIDS programs in relation to
curriculum development, pedagogy, student services, and employment practices.
78. Donor funds should be sought and used more effectively and intensively to develop
and improve in-country post graduate and other training, perhaps supported by some
open and distance learning materials from the developed world.
79. The new HEIs should gradually develop ICT as a learning tool, probably in the
context of mixed modes of learning (email, internet materials, paper-based materials,
audio and visual tapes, intensively taught weekend sessions/summer schools and
telephone tutorials).
80. Virtual learning systems and their outcomes should be assessed using the same
standards as traditionally delivered programs.
81. Economies of scale should be sought through the new HEIs sharing modules, cooperative development with the Ethiopian Open University, and/or a partnership with
an international HEI.
82. All administrative systems in the new HEIs should be ICT-based. To facilitate this,
donors should provide technical and financial assistance to the new HEIs so they can
collectively set up systems for procurement and supplies; asset monitoring; transport;
estates management; finance, registry; human resource management; libraries;
committee records and other matters.
83. The Government should ensure that all new HEIs have broadband quality access to
ICT in all classrooms; instructor offices; administrative offices; classrooms and
libraries and the hardware to make these functional.

67

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72

Appendix 3: Interviews Conducted

Addis Ababa University: Associate Vice President
British Council: Ethiopia Director
British Embassy: DIFD: Education Advisor for Ethiopia
Dawn of Hope Ethiopia Association: Head of Programme Department
Christian Development Relief Association: Deputy Executive Director
East Africa Bottling Share Company: Country Human Resource Manager and the
Learning and Development Coordinator
Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands: First Secretary Education
Ethiopian Airlines: Group interview with Executive Officer Human Resources
Management and Director Human Resources Planning and Development
Ethiopian Chamber of Commerce: Assistant General Secretary and the Partnership
Project Officer
Ethiopian Employers Federation: Group interview with officers
Ethiopian ICT Development Authority: Director General
Ethiopian Science and Technology Commission: Commissioner
Ethiopian Telecommunications Corporation: Director of the Graduate School of
Telecommunications and Information Technology
HIV/AIDS Prevention and Control Office: Head of HAPCO
Ministry of Capacity Building: Advisor to the Minister
Ministry of Health: Head of Health Services and Training Department
Ministry of Finance and Economic Development: Head of the Education Section
Ministry of Trade and Industry: State Minister
MMA Development Consultants: Economist and Head
Organization for Social Service for AIDS in Ethiopia (OSSA): Deputy Head of PsychoSocial Programme and Training (PSPT)
UNDP: Assistant Resident Representative (Programme)
UNESCO: Education Programme Specialist
UNICEF. Acting Chief, Education

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United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO): National Programme

Coordinator- Integrated Program for Ethiopia
Women Support Organization: Executive Director
World Bank, Ethiopia: Senior Health Specialist
World Bank, Ethiopia: Senior Operations Officer Human Development, Head of
Education Sector.
World Bank, Ethiopia: Lead Highway Engineer, Transport Unit, Africa Region,
Additional short interviews were held at a trade fair with the following:
Amhara Region Investment Office
Commercial Bank of Ethiopia
GIGAR Trading
Additional interviews were conducted during four visits to the regions as follows:
Bahar Dar University: Representatives of the senior management
Bahar Dar University: Representatives of the Students Council
Amhara: Representatives of the Regional Planning Office
Amhara: Representatives of the Regional Education Bureau
Bahar Dar: Representatives of the Local Commercial Bank
Tigray: Representatives of the Regional Government Planning Department
Tigray: Representatives of the Regional Education Bureau
Mekele: Representatives of the Worada Council
Mekele: A local retailer (owner of a business in Addis and three local Mekele shops
selling modern electrical goods)
Mekele: Director of a Micro Finance and Development NGO
Mekele: Group of young people
Afar: Representatives of the Regional Planning Bureau
Semera: Representative of a local NGO dealing with Agricultural Development
Semera: A group of local people
.

74

Appendix 4: List of those Participating in the Regional

Consultative Workshops
Deputy Head of Regional Education Bureau: Tigray
Deputy Head Bureau of Finance and Economic Development: Tigray
Training Expert, Health Bureau: Tigray
Policy Analysis, Preparation Review Team Leader, Capacity Building Bureau: Somali
Supervisory Head of Regional Education Bureau: Somali
TVET College Head: Afar
Education and Training Expert, Capacity Building Bureau: Afar
Technical Project Manager: GTZ-IS
Vice Technical Project Manager: GTZ-IS
Expert: Higher Education Relevance and Quality Agency
Senior Expert: Higher Education Relevance and Quality Agency
Dean Kombolcha College of Industry and Technology
Vice Dean Debreberhan Teacher Education and Vocational training College, Amhara Region,
Principal, Jimma College
Principal, Robe High School and Preparatory School,
Dean Rift Valley College
Principal Memhir Akalewold Preparatory Secondary School, Dessie
Head Human Resource Development Department, Amhara Regional State Education Bureau
Private Colleges Scholarship Expert, Oromia Education and Capacity Building Bureau
Principal, Assela Preparatory School, Oromia
Director, Hewas Preparatory School, Adama
02 111989, 09 842196
Research and Publications Officer, Adama College of Technical Teacher
Dean, Desse Business School
Dean Assele TVET College

75

Appendix 5: Summary of discussion agreed from each

of the workshops
1st regional workshop: Somali, Afar and Tigray
Speech of the Minister
Important to share of view between regions
Do not be afraid of thinking outside of the box
HE needs to answer the regional and national economical and social
development
HE role in imagining the society of the future
Outline of existing situation and future plans
Expansion of HE 9,000 in 1990 to 72,000 students today. New students from
6000 to 31 000
Big advancement and growth but we still only 1.5 to go 5% o age group
From the 8 institutions 13 more HE will be open
Similar degrees and institutions. Not relevant for business and development
priorities of the country
How to have unique institutions that together complement each other, as a
system, to answer the needs of the country
What the workshop agreed is needed by the country
New and innovative programs and new area of study that are demanded by the
society for the new institutes
Financial sustainability depends on the income generation capacity
Research, consultancy and training to mobilize resources
What the workshop agreed are the issues to be tackled by new HEIs
Gender and HIV/AIDS
Part of the values of the new institutions
Links with the productive work
Engage in consultants with local and national stakeholders for curriculum
development
Great diversity and differentiation in the HE system
Flexible curricula
Graduates lack practical competence
Managers should see the influx of young instructors as an opportunity because
they can became a new breed of instructors that are innovative and creative
Graduates have to be inquisitive and responsible citizens
Generate ideas and income so entrepreneurship is fundamental in the
graduates of HE
Integrity and ethical behavior
Discussion centered around
Specialization and centers of excellence

76

The present minimum 3 years program allowed in HE,

Existing programs are being to reformed and new programs will be open
Teachers programs are fundamental for different regions
We should not replicate programs that can be shared
Range management and animal production is important for Ethiopia
Practical skills is fundamental
Priority for teacher training
Health area is also priority
Engineering
Articulation with TVET is a priority because there is a need for new
qualifications 12 years + one year and 12 + 2 years

Conclusions by the workshop include:

Ethiopia needs a HE sector that is differentiated, diverse, innovative and
capable of answer the development needs of the regions and the country in
general
The HE institutions must have quality, good management practices and
capacity to mobilize their own resources
The regions are the co-owners of these new institutions and need to appoint
local people for the creation and for the board and to liaison with the Ministry
of Education
The local representatives should come from public and private sector.
It is a huge challenge for Ethiopia to open the new HE institutions due to lack
of human and financial resources
The new institutions should not be replicas of existing HE institutions but
more innovative and with new areas of study and offer curricula that is
demanded driven and flexible (multidisciplinary)
There are areas such as education (teachers training) and health science
(nursing, laboratory technicians and so on) that will be offer in several
institutions due to the large need of human resources
Other areas (more economic related) should not be replicated but the new
institution offering that area should be a Center of Excellence
Ethiopia needs human resources that have more types of a post-secondary
education ( 12 +1, 12+ 2 and 12+ 3 bachelor degree)
Under present rules, 12th grade+ 1 and +2 studies has to be supplied by
Colleges at TVET sector and so these will need to be articulated with the HE
institutions at the regional level
Under present rules, HE institutions will offer the Bachelor degree (3 years or
more) and Masters and PhD. Degrees.
The three regions concluded that they need comprehensive HEIs (mainly
teaching) with a single campus, although in the case of Tigray it maybe a
multi-campus due to the need to place the Faculty of Health Sciences near the
new hospital
They also need partner colleges that train at higher education certificate and
associate degree levels and can create a balanced pyramid of work force
It is important to articulate with the 8 existing HE institutions when opening of
these new Higher Education institutions.
77

Priority programs for new HEIs agreed by the workshop

Area of study

Afar

Somali

Tigray

Education

1st

1st

1st

Health
sciences

Important but
should be out
sourced

3rd

2nd

Important but
should be out
sourced

Important but
should be out
sourced

Engineering
and mining
Agriculture

2nd

Archeology
Animal health
and Animal
production
Management
and economics

3rd
3rd
2nd

Priories for areas that should be expanded outside of the new HEIs in the region
Area of study
Medicine

Afar

Somali

Tigray

Tourism
Managers

X
X

Agriculture

Mining

Engineering

Tigrays preferred institutional landscape

University single campus near a new hospital offering:

78

Education
Health sciences (hospital)
Civil engineering (water harvesting and supply)
Archeology
Tourism management (out source)
Geology and miming (out source)

Somalis preferred institutional landscape

University, comprehensive with single campus offering:
Education faculty as the first faculty (principally science teachers)
Management and economics (3 year degree program)
Health officers ( medicine will be out sourcing)
Engineering (mining, electronic and telecommunication and civil chemical)
and geology
Multi disciplinary programs at the faculty of Management (health managers,
education managers, and so on)
Afars preferred institutional landscape
Comprehensive university single campus offering
Education
Agriculture (agro processing)
Animal health and animal production
Human health sciences
2nd regional workshop: Oromia and Amhara
Discussion of existing and future plans
Important to increase access to HE and equity
HE needs to answer the regional and national economical and social development
HE has a role in imagining the society of the future
Importance of regional contribution
Expansion of HE 9000 in 1990 to 172 000 students today. New students from 6000 to
31 000
Big advancement and growth but still only 1.5 % GER. Government policy is for
enrolment to go 5% of the age group
Besides the 8 institutions 13 more HE will be open
Existing HEIs have similar degrees and institutions. Not all are relevant for business
and development priorities of the country
The workshop considered how to have unique institutions that together complement
each other, as a system, to answer the needs of the country
Donor concerns about the expansion include
Large share of HE in education budget: now 20 %, plan to increase to 25 %
HE more than 80 times as expensive as primary education so arguments have to be
strong
Pace of growth of HE and pace of growth of demand for HE labour have to be
synchronized to prevent unemployment
Donors are not convinced about the current expansion plan

79

The pace of growth of HE has to be manageable in terms of staff and administration

Donors might be willing to support but this requires good arguments and the benefits
for the poor and the development of the country have to be proved.

International trends in HE include:

Massification to answer the growing HE workforce demand
Changes in finance: HEIs must generate own income. Ethiopia : block grant starting
2006
Awareness of autonomy AND accountability
Flexibility in staff employment: part-time, contract based for academic staff and to a
lesser extent for professional managerial and administrative staff
HEIs provide new services for updating and enhancing skills as a way of income
generation
Danger of overestimating ICT most useful when used as a contribution to courses
Issues that need to be tackled by new HEIs
New, flexible and innovative programs and new areas of study that are demanded by
the society for the new institutes
Gender and HIV/AIDS
Graduates with practical competence
Links with the productive work and employers
Great diversity and differentiation in the HE system
Flexible curricula
Integrity and ethical behavior
Discussion centered on:
Support and management for the establishment of new HEIs in the region needed
Specialization and centers of excellence
Practical skills are fundamental
Articulation with TVET and HE is a priority because there is a need for new
qualifications 12 years + one year and 12 + 2 years or 10+3+1 year and 10+3+2 years
Conclusions of the workshop
Ethiopia needs a HE sector that is differentiated, diverse, flexible, innovative and
capable of answering the development needs of the regions and the country in general
The HE institutions must have quality, good management practices and capacity to
mobilize their own regional resources
HE institutions have to focus on their core business: good education and outsource
services such as catering, lodging of students, cleaning and others
A policy enabling students to chose subject and university will partly alleviate food
and lodging problems
The regions are the co-owners of these new institutions and need to appoint local
people for the creation and for the board and to liaise with the Ministry of Education
The local representatives should come from public and private sector
It is a huge challenge for Ethiopia to open new HE institutions due to lack of human
and financial resources
Mobilizing international resources will help to meet the needs
The new institutions should not be replicas of existing HE institutions but more
innovative and with new areas of study and offer curricula that is demanded driven
and flexible (multidisciplinary)

80

They are areas such as education (teachers training) and health science (nursing,
laboratory technicians and so on) that will be offer in several institutions due to the
large need of human resources
Other areas (more economic related) should not be replicated but the new institution
offering that area should be a Center of Excellence
Ethiopia needs human resources that have a post-secondary education and post TVET
(12 +1, 12+ 2 and 12+ 3 bachelor degree 10+3+1 and 10+3+2, 10+3+3)
12th grade +1 and +2 studies at the moment have to be supplied by Colleges at TVET
sector and need to be articulated with the HE institutions at the regional level
HE institutions might offer some 12+1 and 12 + 2 and so might TVET colleges
The regions also need linkages between institutions to supply training at certificate
and diploma levels and that can create a balanced pyramid of work force such
linkages will allow sharing of resources and staff
It is important to articulate with the 8 existing HE institutions on the opening of these
new Higher Education institutions

Program priorities for Amhara

Area of study

Amhara
Dessie

Debre Markos

Education

1st priority
3 year program
all subjects

Health sciences

(Industrial)
Engineering

2nd priority
Health officers, then nurses 3
years program
1st priority
3 + 4 year
program

Agriculture
Management and
economics

Debre Birhan

1st priority
1,2 and 3 years program
2nd priority
Management
3 year program

2nd priority economic +

accounting
2 + 3 year program

Program priorities for Oromia

Area of study

Oromiya
Madda Walabu
Nazareth/Adama (Bale/Robe)

Education

1st priority
Technical +
languages, Art,
Nat. +Soc.
Sciences 3 years

Health sciences
Engineering
Agriculture

Wellege (Nekempte)

3rd priority Natural Science Law (probably

using health equipment. 3 outsourcedto Jimma)
years program
2nd Nursing 3 years
program

Architecture 2nd
priority
3 + 4 years program

1st priority mining,

then water engineering
1st priority Animal Health 3rd priority Forestry
1+2+3 years program

81

Management and
economics

4th priority Tourism

1+2+3 years program

2nd priority Economic +

accounting
2 + 3 years program

Amhara regions preferred institutional landscape

Dessie University focused at engineering
Link with TVET colleges technical and agriculture students so that 10+3 can enter university.
Teachers + health outsourced to Debre Birhan
Debre Birhan focused on teacher training link with business and technical TVET colleges,
and health college
Debre Markos focused on agriculture link with colleges in Mota and Bure
Oromia regions preferred institutional landscape
Adama University
Center of excellence for technical teachers education: link: Robe TTC, Adama TVET, Adama
College of Education
New areas of teacher education: natural sciences, social sciences, language, arts, architecture
Robe Madda Walabu University
Center of Excellence for health sciences: links with Goba and Asela Nursing Colleges:
nursing, health officer, pharmacy, laboratory technicians, tourism
Wollega University
Center of excellence for mining engineering link with Nekemte and other nearby colleges also
to share resources.

3rd Regional workshop: Dire Dawa and SNNPR

Existing situation and future plans
Expansion of HE 9000 in 1990 to 172 000 students today. New students from 6000 to
31 000.
Big advancement and growth but we still only 1.5 % has to go 5% of the age group
Besides the 8 institutions 13 more HE will be open
Similar degrees and institutions. Not relevant for business and development priorities
of the country
How to have unique institutions that together complement each other, as a system, to
answer the needs of the country
Important to increase access to HE and equity
HE needs to answer the regional and national economical and social development
HE role in imagining the society of the future
Importance of regional contribution
Donors concerns
Large share of HE in education budget: now 20 %, plan to increase to 25 %
HE more than 80 times as expensive as primary education so arguments for HE have
to be strong
Pace of growth of HE and pace of growth of demand for HE labour have to be
synchronized to prevent unemployment.
Donors are not convinced about the current expansion plan
The pace of growth of HE has to be manageable in terms of staff and administration
Donors are willing to support but this requires good arguments and the benefits for
the poor and the development of the country have to be proved.

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International tends
HE-growth answers growing HE workforce demand
Changes in finance: generate own income Ethiopia: block grant per 2006
Awareness of autonomy and accountability
New services for updating and expanding skills life long learning + income
Flexibility in staff employment: part-time, contract based, more managerial, less but
professional administrative staff
Do not overestimate possibilities of ICT, can be a good contribution in courses
Distance learning good possibilities
Linkages with the world of work have to be strengthened, this needs strategy
What should the Ethiopian higher education system be like?
A coherent system among institutes means differentiation, specialization and
cooperation not duplication and homogeneity
National associations needed for certain university professionals e.g. presidents,
registrars, student care
Flexible life long learning system means more effective use of human resources.
The HE-system has to link to secondary education and TVET
New and innovative programs and new area of study that are demanded by the region,
the nation the society from the new institutes
Supportive legal system that allows innovation
Financial sustainability depends on the income generation capacity
Research, consultancy and training to mobilize resources
Supportive procurement processes
Issues to be tackled by the new HEIs
Gender and HIV/AIDS
Graduates with practical competence
Links with the productive work, community and employers
Engage local and national stakeholders in curriculum development
Great diversity flexibility and differentiation in the HE system
Flexible multi disciplinary curricula
Generate ideas and income entrepreneurship is fundamental in the graduates of HE
Integrity and ethical behavior
How to access advice and support from international community and the Diaspora.
Access system with credit support for disadvantaged students
Discussion centered upon
Is it feasible to establish 13 new universities as planned?
Support and management is needed for the establishment of new HEIs in the region
Ethiopia could benefit from specialized universities (e.g. for women) and centers of
excellence
Now for a university the minimum is a 3 years program, this might need certification
at other levels
Practical skills are fundamental
Curricula should be more profession oriented and labor market oriented
Teacher training important priority
Health area is also priority

83

Engineering focused on industry for natural resources and export potential priority
Indigenous studies need attention.
Articulation with TVET and HE is a priority because there is a need for new
qualifications 12 years + one year and 12 + 2 years or 10+3+1 year and 10+3+2 years
How do you mix a planning for expansion of higher education to answer the demand
of graduates on the labor market and planning HE-expansion as a motor for the labor
market?
Catering for special types of students
Pedagogy needed for managing large classes

Conclusions
Ethiopia needs a HE sector that is differentiated, diverse, innovative, flexible and
capable of answering the development needs of the regions and the country in general
The new institutions should not be replicas of existing HE institutions but more
innovative and with new areas of study and offer curricula that are demanded driven
and flexible (multidisciplinary)
The HE institutions must have quality, good management practices and capacity to
mobilize their own resources
HE institutions have to focus on their core business: good education and outsource
services such as catering, lodging of students, cleaning and gardening etc. to local
companies
Mechanisms are needed to encourage local entrepreneurs to provide the services.
The regions are the co-owners of these new institutions and need to appoint local
people for the creation and for the board and to liaison with the Ministry of Education
The local representatives should come from public and private sector.
The private sector has to be included in the planning of HE, preserving the quality
and complementarity.
A policy enabling students to chose subject and university will increase the number of
(female) local students and partly alleviate food and lodging problems
It is important to articulate with the 8 existing HE institutions the opening of these
new Higher Education institutions
Ethiopia needs human resources that have a post-secondary education. There is a
need for new qualifications 12 years + one year and 12 + 2 years or 10+3+1 year and
10+3+2 years.
Teachers have to be trained to deal with massification, acquire techniques and skills
that keep quality high while dealing with large numbers of students.
The new HE-institutions have to serve local and regional needs and play a role in the
national HE landscape.
A more effective association of public HEI is needed.
Active strategies are needed to encourage children from marginalised ethnic
communities to enter higher education.
Strengthening the capacity of the private HE sector.
Rewarding better performing staff.
Developing appropriate policies and practices for HIV/Aids prevention including
HRM and curriculum.

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Priority programs for SNNPR

Area
Education

Agriculture

Dilla
Sodo
1st priority: new:
Civil ed.+ Comp. Sc.
+ Business +
Pedagogy (BSc)
2nd priority:
Natural res.(BSc) (2nd )
Rural Sc. Family Sc.(3rd)

Health

2nd priority
Health Education

Social Sc.

Cultural Studies:
12+3 Anthropology +
Sociology

Engineering

Mizan/Tepi
2nd Technical
teachers
1st priority: animal
health, dairy science
Vet med. (outsource)
Agroforestry (outs),
Agro-economics

1st priority:
Health (As. degree)
Med (outsource)

4th priority:
Civil (outsource)
Construction

Priority programs for Dire Dawa

To create the National Womens University of Ethiopia
Area

priority

Entrepreneurship 12+1, 12+2, till

1st priority
BSc (1st priority)
Business (2)
(outsourced)
management:
Support training As degree
Engineering (2nd priority): chemical, 2nd priority: processing local and
then civic, mechanical, electrical
regional resources and export
Education

Outsource (Alemaya)

Natural Science MSc

Outsource (Alemaya)

85

Appendix 6: List of papers presented at the National

Conference
The 13 New Higher Education for Ethiopia: Preliminary Analysis and Discussion of Results
of Research in to Curriculum, Resource and Organizational Issues: Prof. Kate Ashcroft,
Acting Director Higher Education Strategy Centre.
What Nuffic is and What it Stands for: Its History, the Market it Operates in and its Four
Main Areas of Work: Dr. Jon Walencamp, Director, Netherlands Organization for International
Cooperation.
The 13 New Higher Education Institutions for Ethiopia: What should each of the New HEIs
Actually Do? Prof. Kate Ashcroft, Higher Education Strategy Center.
Private Means to Public Ends: Financing Higher Education in Developing Countries: Dr
Carlo Salerno, Senior Research Associate, Center for Higher Education Policy Studies,
University of Twente The Netherlands.
Developing a New Higher Education System in Mozambique: Dr. Lidia Brito, ex Minister for
Higher Education, Science and Technology, Mozambique.
Towards Creating an Inclusive Environment in Institutions of Higher Education in Ethiopia:
Prof. Tirusew Teferra, Addis Ababa University and Dr. Elina Lehtomaki, Ministry of
Education.
An Over view of Challenges and Opportunities of the Higher Education Expansion in
Ethiopia: Dr. Daniel Desta, Addis Ababa University.
Influence of PPC And FPC Students Entry Behaviour On Academic Self-Concept, Students
Perceived Teachers Expectations and Academic Achievement: The Case of Debub.
University: Demewez Admasu, Kotebe College of Teacher Education, Mehadi Abdo, Kotebe
College of Teacher Education and Tesfaye Semela, Debub University.
Higher Education Reform and Academic Freedom: Amare Asgedom, Addis Ababa University
Revisiting the Training System of Teachers Education and Agricultural TVETs in Ethiopia: Dr.
Daniel Kassahun, Addis Ababa University
The Hangover of Traditional Assessment on the Implementation of the New Assessment
Policy in HEIs: Aytaged Sisay, Addis Ababa University
Pushing for Performance: Priority Setting and the Changing Organization and Management
of Research at South Africa Universities: Tembile Kulati, Center for Higher Education Policy
Studies, University of Twente.
Education and Development in Ethiopia: Shimeles Gizaw, Ethiopian Languages Research
Center.
Partnership between Higher Learning Institutions and the Labour Market in Ethiopia in
Pursuit of Mutual Development: Alemayehu Debebe, Civil Service College.
Higher Education Expansion and the Gender Question in Ethiopia: A Case Study of Women
in a Public University: Tesfaye Semela, Debub University.
Indigenous Knowledge for Sustainable Development: The Role of Higher Education in
Ethiopia: Assaye Legesse and Ziyn Engdasew, Adama University
International Comparisons Between Ethiopia's HE System and HE in Other Countries: What
Can Be Learned? Dr. Wanna Leka, Addis Ababa University
Conducting Research in Private and Public Higher Institutions: An Index for Quality of
Education: Bekalu Atanfu, St Marys College.

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The Role of Addis Ababa University Research Institutions in the National Development:
Desalegn Chalchisa, Addis Ababa University
How Digital Technology is Being Utilized for Education and Research at the Addis Ababa
University: Local Area Networking in Focus: Yehenew Shiferaw, Addis Ababa University.
Linkage of Higher Education with Agricultural Research, Extension and Development in
Ethiopia: Prof. Belay Kassa, Alemaya University.
Quality an Ideological Construct: Dr. Philip Rayner, HERQA.
Quality of Teaching and Learning in Ethiopian Higher Education: Tension between
Traditional and Innovative Teaching Approaches: Dr. Derebssa Dufera Serbessa, Addis Ababa
University
The Quality versus Quantity Dilemma in the Expansion of Higher Education in Ethiopia:
Implications for future direction: Mulu Nega, Addis Ababa University
Assuming Quality in an Expanded Higher Education System through Research: Dr. Berhanu
Mathews, Addis Ababa University.
Outcome Approach to Learning: A Good Practice for Ethiopian Higher Education: Dr
Yohannes Woldetnsae, HERQA.
PublicPrivate Partnership in the Provision of Tertiary Education: Its Role in the
Transformation of Ethiopia's Higher Education Towards Quality Assurance: Ayenew Tessera,
St Mays College.
Building on Three Pillars Guiding the Development of Higher Education in Ethiopia by
Ensuring a Solid Foundation: Kees Van Dongen Vrije University of Amsterdam.
Enhancing Opportunities for Recognition and Progression at Higher Education for Ethiopian
Teachers: Helen Papworth, Ministry of Education.
The Ethical Dimension of Teaching in Higher Education: A Case Study of Teachers Moral
Dilemmas in the Context of Private Higher Education: Solomon Amare, Unity University
College.
Using Active Learning Activities in Large Classes: Dr. Luis Bello, Dr. Joetta Brown, Dr.
Tesfahun Kebede, Alemaya University.
Community Based Education (CBE) in Jimma University: A Reflection on its Challenges and
Prospects as Curriculum Innovation: Solomon Belay, Jimma University
Higher Education in Ethiopia: Globalizing the Professions: Abreha Asfaw Ambaye, Addis
Ababa University
Assessment of the Contributions of Madda Walabu University to the Regional State of
Oromia: Bedada Mergo, Adama University
Socio Economic Infrastructure of the Tigray Region: Solomon Hishe, Mekelle University
Needs Assessment Research Conducted on the Future Direction of the New Higher Education
Institution: The Case of Oromia Region, Wellega University: Tolera Negassa, Adama
University
The New Adama University: its Challenges and Impacts in Adama: Haileul Zeleke, Adama
University
Evaluation of Higher Education Systems to Meet Social Expectations: Lessons to Ethiopia:
Wossenu Yimam, Addis Ababa University
Economic and Social Infrastructure of SNNPR and the Desired Contribution of the New
HEIs: Mesfin Lemma, Debub University

87