Education Sector Development Program - VLIR-UOS

Education Sector Development Program IV
and within the country. Due to the expansion of
postgraduate programs the academic staff has
more than doubled under ESDP III. Thus the
number of academic staff moved from 4,847
in 2004/05 to 11,238 in 2009/10. The share of
females has remained at 10%.
Currently about 1,145 academic staff are attending
PhD programs abroad and within the country.
The performance development process for
academic staff supports a culture of continuous
learning and performance improvement, thus
demonstrating the government’s commitment to
developing and retaining academic talent.
With a view to putting in place a structure
for external quality assurance, HERQA was
established. It developed during the planning
period a mechanism for the accreditation of
private higher education institutions / HEIs and
it initiated a process of auditing both public and
private HEIs.
As part of the national governance reform, the
Higher Education Strategy Centre (HESC) was
also created and able to provide support for
policy development and decision-making in
higher education.
Under ESDP III, a renewed emphasis was put
on the relevance of academic programs. The
Convergence Plan adopted in 2008/2009 provided
further guidance when establishing the 70%
and 30% placement objective for sciences &
technology (S&T) and social/human sciences
(SHS). Currently annual intake in the science
and technology to social/human sciences has
reached 58% and 42% respectively.
A major effort was made to equip universities
with state of the art ICT to support both teaching
and administrative processes. A Tele-Conference
Center has been established at the school of
pharmacy by MOE and has begun to provide
service. It provides live transmission and two
way communications and educates around 200
students at the post-graduate level in technology
subject areas.
The old universities have developed and
harmonized their capacity to procure the needed
materials and equipment. Endowments have
been made to equip all 13 new Universities with
laboratory facilities, apparatus, chemicals and
reference books for different subject areas with
special consideration for science and technology
fields.
Universities have developed new curriculum
guidelines in practically all disciplines and are
now implementing them. They are also working
on establishing quality systems.
As a tool for institutional reform, BPR has been
used to achieve institutional transformation in all
universities while the transformation process is
ongoing.
Main challenges
• Despite major expansion, access
to higher education remains
relatively limited (GER of 5,3%
in 2008/2009), and admission
targets have not been met.
• Post-graduate admissions remain
far below the target figures. This
puts serious constraints on the
system in terms of local staff
availability because of the rapid
system expansion.
• The share of female academics
remains far below the target, and
would require serious efforts to
encourage female participation
both at the under-graduate postgraduate
level.
• Open and distance education
remain hardly developed,
Ethiopian Open University has not
been created.
• Undergraduate enrolments
evolve more rapidly than qualified
teachers putting serious
constraints on working conditions
and the quality of education.
• Shortages of qualified Staff both
in public and private sectors
particularly pronounced in
science and technology areas
where enrolments are expected
to increase rapidly.
• Academic staff is very young, and
only a small number has a PhD.
• There are constraints to tap
resources through the internet
and sharing of experiences.
• The private institutions relevance
and quality is not in line with the
expectancy of the government
• There is no strong Technology
Transfer system which is based
on the need of the industry.
• Higher Education Management
and Leadership system is not at
the required level.
• The number of female teachers is
limited
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