ETHIOPIA: Expanding and improving higher education

Ethiopia is radically expanding its higher education sector: from two federal universities to 22 in just over a decade and another 10 to open soon. Even so, the percentage of the available cohort that attends higher education is still low at about 3%, compared with a Sub-Saharan average in 2007 of 6%, according to Unesco. The huge expansion of student numbers is mainly in new regional universities and a vibrant private system.

The Ethiopian government sees higher education as an important plank in its strategy for social and economic development.

Particular ideas related to the purposes of higher education are valued and prioritised. Some of the purposes are seen as relatively less important (for example furthering the arts and culture) than others (especially employability, democracy and entrepreneurialism). Higher education is also seen as one of the ways of spearheading regional identity and autonomy in a country with over 80 languages and dialects. These values are used to define criteria for judgements in the Ethiopian context.

Ethiopia is one of the world's poorest countries and the expansion of higher education is a considerable investment, both financially and politically and a considerable risk for the government.

At the same time, the development of largely unregulated private higher education and the extension of open and blended learning formats have presented challenges. Partly to show that this expansion has been successful and has not resulted in a lowering of quality, a Higher Education Relevance and Quality Agency (HERQA) was established in law in 2003.

The way that the concept of quality assurance has been introduced and developed has been strongly influenced by various 'travelling salesmen' who drew on their own (northern) university sector experience and conceptual frameworks to advise the sector and government. Read More