University Autonomy: The Ethiopian Experience

The Teacher, Vol 6, No 12, 2014

The need for changes in the governance of the Ethiopian education system has been emphasized as early as 1994 in the Ethiopian Education and Training Policy (ETP) which may be regarded as the precursor to many of the policies and changes within the education sector. However, it is the directions set in the Higher Education Proclamations of 2003 and 2009 that have clearly outlined the mechanisms by which Ethiopian universities should be governed. This paper outlines some of the major features and changes in the area and explores how much the principles and aspirations laid down have been translated into action in light of international trends. The focus areas chosen for discussion are the issues of autonomy, accountability and governance structures both at system and institutional level. The study exclusively dwells on public universities and draws its information from secondary sources. It is structured in a manner that discusses trends within the international literature followed by the actual practices in the Ethiopian set up. The conclusions drawn are offered at the end.

Leuven University Press, 2020

University World News, 2023

The long-awaited plan of the Ethiopian government to grant fully fledged autonomy to public universities appears to have entered its final stage, with the recent approval of a relevant proclamation in parliament. The demand for full autonomy has been one of the major quests of Ethiopian universities since the establishment of the University College of Addis Ababa, or UCAA (now Addis Ababa University), in 1950-the first higher education institution in the country. Universities have always deplored the limitations they face in terms of exercising their full power and the unlawful interference from the government which disrupts their normal functions, threatens their existence, and endangers the safety of their communities. In contrast, the government has always chosen to tighten its grips on universities, not only due to the huge resources it allocates to institutions, but also due to its view of the university as a potential threat to its power.

The Ethiopian predicament in establishing a service university is a function of several mismatches between university, society and state: (a) between society's mainly low-tech agricultural production and the university's production of academics; (b) between the state's need for investment finances in new economic activities and the lack thereof; (c) between the state and the university in terms of proper governance and how organisational changes in higher education should be made; and (d) different opinions between state and university about the proper balance between individual academic freedom, institutional autonomy and accountability to society and state. Turning mismatches into constructive national development suggests that the government should attract foreign capital for new production activities, under the specific condition that the foreigners should simultaneously invest a certain percentage in the country's higher education development. An important structural change would be to establish a dynamic and competent decision-making body at government level for science, technology and competence production. Donor countries and agencies ought to be encouraged to support Ethiopian development projects where research, tertiary-level training and business projects can work in an integrated fashion and where the Ethiopian 'surplus' academic workforce power could be applied abroad.

2017

The article attempts to explore the overall patterns of governance of higher education institutions in Ethiopia in the recent past that witnessed the massification of higher education institutions, and to investigate and display the change and continuity that have been observed in the governance of these institutions. It tries to offer some insight concerning the governance aspect in the ever-expanding and the most pressing issue of the Ethiopian higher education system. The paper presents a snapshot of the contemporary higher education development in the past two decades and associated features in Ethiopia by identifying the central issues related to principally governance, the legal framework and the political context. As the boom of higher education in the country became prevalent the governance bottleneck is one evident issue that vehemently impacts the missions of the institutions. The indispensable governance issues did not equally accompany the expansion of the higher educati...

Journal of Higher Education in Africa

The article attempts to explore the overall patterns of governance of higher education institutions in Ethiopia in the recent past that witnessed the massification of higher education institutions, and to investigate and display the change and continuity that have been observed in the governance of these institutions. It tries to offer some insight concerning the governance aspect in the ever-expanding and the most pressing issue of the Ethiopian higher education system. The paper presents a snapshot of the contemporary higher education development in the past two decades and associated features in Ethiopia by identifying the central issues related to principally governance, the legal framework and the political context. As the boom of higher education in the country became prevalent the governance bottleneck is one evident issue that vehemently impacts the missions of the institutions. The indispensable governance issues did not equally accompany the expansion of the higher educati...

Focusing on modern-day political provisions that are imposed on higher education, I will give a brief overview for an otherwise broad and contentious issue; the contemporary challenges of present-day higher education, and particularly higher education in Addis Ababa University (AAU).

Inside Higher Education, 2017

The Ethiopian social, cultural, economic, infrastructure, and political realities ought to be fully taken into account prior to the deployment of new management models.

The emergence of New Public Management (NPM) in the 1980s and its popularization through the 1990s has resulted in massive reforms in the public sector of many western countries. Privatization and structural reforms became common practice; marketization, market-like, new approaches of governance, ‘network governance’, ‘evaluative state’, state supervision, accountability (Boer & File, 2009, p.9), decentralization and autonomy came to be key words in everyday language. In the meantime, in developing countries, like Ethiopia, political instability and power struggle did not give enough space for reforms to take place in the public sector. Until recently, and even currently, in most developing countries, the public sector, in general and the Higher Education (HE) sector in particular, is under the heavy hands of the state. This paper attempts to draw a general picture of the changes that have taken place in the past decade and the likely future of the higher education sector in Ethiopia by taking the perspective of NPM as analytical framework. It specifically relies, as analytical tool, on what is called “the governance equalizer” by Boer, Enders and Schimank (2007, p.4) which focuses on the five dimensions of NPM: state regulation, stakeholder guidance, academic self-governance, managerial self-governance and competition. The paper begins by introducing the Ethiopian higher education sector, gives a short description of the methods used and the corresponding methodological limitations encountered, discusses analysis of the governance equalizer, and concludes with assessment of strengths and weaknesses of changes in the sector based on the equalizer as criteria.

Higher Education Quarterly, 2009

There have been significant increases in the number of universities and student enrollments in the last fifteen years in Ethiopia. The numerical gains have brought about improved access to higher education for students. The expansion has also diversified fields of study and opened opportunities to pursue higher degrees to a significant number of students. Furthermore, the opportunity created for the university staff includes increased university job security, positions in the university leadership and scholarships for PhD degrees. On the other hand, the downside effects of the massification have worsened the conditions of university teaching staff. Among others, it has resulted in increasing work load and extended work schedules for academic staff. A managerialist culture has evolved that measures teaching against instrumental outcomes. There is a sense of deprofessionalisation and deskilling among staff manifested in practices that are disconnections from professional knowledge, skills and attitudes. As staff are increasingly over-engaged, by taking more weekly class hours and managerial responsibilities, less ‘down time’ is available to keeping with developments in their fields of specialisation and practice