| Abstract: | Ethiopia is in the process of establishing an organization to report on the quality of
Higher Education, both public and private. The Higher Education Relevance and Quality
Agency (HERQA) have recently moved into new offices. It has established a Board that
meets regularly, has appointed a Director, and is training recently appointed expert and
support staff. It will start to undertake its duties at the start of the 1998 (EC) Academic
Year.
The Ethiopian Higher Education sector that HERQA is to report on is in the process of a
rapid growth of public universities from only two, a few years ago, to eight in 2005.
Recently the Government announced the establishment of another thirteen new
universities, plus an open university. A few years ago there were less than six accredited
or pre-accredited private Colleges and Universities. Today the number is more than
seventy for the diploma and 34 for the degree programmes. All the PHEIs currently
enroll over 39,000 students which are 23% of the total National Enrolment in Higher
Education. At the last year’s conference, HE the Minister of Education announced that in
the past five years, students from private HEIs account for the 40% of the total enrolment
in Higher Education.
Nearly all those involved in the Higher Education system recognize the crucial role the
agency HERQA will play in the maintenance and assessment of the quality of education
offered However, there is one question that is only just recently started to be asked,
“What is quality?” And its subsidiary question, “What does quality look like in the
Ethiopian context?” Consultation is recognized as being a key component in the process
of defining and understanding what quality is. However, one question is, “Consultation
with whom?” The list of possible stakeholders in the Higher Education process is a long
one: the Government employers, the students, the parents and the HEls themselves (both
managers and faculty), donors and probably others.
Based on the research undertaken in 2004 on Higher Education System Overhaul
(HESO) and in 2005 for HERQA and the Higher Education Strategy Centre (HSC) plus
relevant literature, this paper will explore in more detail what is it that the various
stakeholders in the Ethiopian Higher Education sector may expect or demand from Higher Education and how their particular agendas and perspectives will influence their
own individual notions of what is meant by quality.
The paper will also explore what ‘quality’ means in an expanding and the growth of
'massif’ Higher Education system and the lessons for the Higher Education Relevance
and Quality Agency. This paper will suggest that it is perhaps unrealistic to expect all the
stakeholders in Higher Education to agree and share a common definition of ‘quality’
except in its very broadest sense. However, for HERQA to ensure quality standard, it
needs the support and cooperation of all the other stakeholders in Ethiopian Higher
Education. ‘Quality’ cannot be achieved in isolation and it cannot be imposed from
above. It has to be a communal effort. Eventually all of those involved in the Higher
Education Sector, both private and public, will need to work together to ensure that we
are all ‘doing the right things in the right way’ |
