Ethiopia: Prioritizing Skilled Labour Through Improved Education Infrastructure
Posted on :Thursday , 2nd March 2017
Of late, Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn had laid a cornerstone for the construction of Borena University in Borena Zone, Oromia State. As the premier spoke after the groundbreaking ceremony, the construction of the university will assist in preserving the cultural values of the pastoral communities, and thereby to address their socio-economic issues.
In fact, efforts have been well undergoing in Ethiopia to make the content and the organization of education more relevant to the diversified needs of the population. But, major investments in improving the numbers and the qualifications of teachers, the availability of equipment and student achievement have not sufficiently been improved.
Although there has been achievements in the increasing number of educational infrastructures, a lot remains to come up with improved teaching-learning processes. If students do not acquire significant knowledge and skills, the nation will not be able to compete within a global economy.
It is therefore necessary to shift attention to quality concerns which translate more directly into an improved and a genuine learning environment. Of course, quality is a crucial challenge at higher education level. A higher education system demands high‐quality education and other human and material resources.
Access to all levels of the education system has to increase at a rapid rate in line with a sharp increases in the number of teachers, schools and institutions in the next academic years.
However, the rapid expansion and sustainability of higher education are currently hot topics. The Ethiopian education system had displayed a leap from 39,000 students in the late 1990s to 700,000 in 2015/16. With the goal of growing further in the next few years, there has to be serious implications for the maintenance of quality and affordability.
Putting growth rates in relative terms growth rates, the number of universities in the country, some 15 years ago, has been limited to two with 3,000 students enrolling capacity. The number of public universities over the course of the last two decades has increased to over 34, excluding private owned ones.
The enrolment capacity of higher education limited to 39,000 students in the late 1990s has shot up to to 700,000 in 2015/16 showing an increase of 33 per cent. Hence, the construction of the universities is critical in achieving GTP targets the country has set, and to join ranks with middle income countries by 2025.
Having such achievements so far, the development of higher education should be an important element in the expansion strategy as it can provide a laboratory for innovation and new practices and competition that could refine standards as well as improve access. Currently, quality has also emerged as a determinant issue, in the processes of curriculum reform at national and institutional levels.
Though government polices and regulations vary widely, the role of higher education institutions may be seen as a solution to quality and creating access to limited space and facilities. Nowadays, higher education and some private institutions have begun to develop more expensive study fields, and to conduct more researches on system of governance in general.
The newly inaugurated Borana University will play a significant role in improving the livelihoods of the pastoral communities and to efficiently use the livestock resource available.
Apart from building universities and educational infrastructures, the government has to provide the necessary support for technology transfer, women participation and human resource programme for emerging industries so as to see the nation's vision comes true.
Through improving all aspects of the quality of education and ensuring excellence, an acknowledged and measurable learning outcomes will be achieved by all, especially in literacy, numeracy and essential life‐skills.
The issue of quality education can be expressed in terms of teachers' qualification, pupils‐teacher ratio, learning achievements of students, level of educational facilities, and level of educational expenditure as the typical indicators of quality education. Indeed, school facilities have impact on accesses, quality, efficiency and equity. The school facilities are also tools to attract students in general.
In sum, Ethiopia has had development policy directions which entirely existed to ensure equitable and inclusive socio‐economic development to reduce poverty at all levels. And human resource development has been placed at the centre-stage of any development agenda of the country.
As all of the policy directions including the current GTP II envisages education as one of the most potential instrument to realize Ethiopia's development vision of becoming a middle income economy by 2025, there is a critical need for middle and higher level skilled human power. So, the expansion of such universities in due course is an indicator for the commitment that the government has undoubtedly given to the realization of the renaissance journey.
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