H
Higher Education Systems
and Institutions, Ethiopia
Fred Kofi Boateng
School of Education and Leadership, College of
Education, University of Ghana, Accra, Ghana
Synonyms
Higher education; Management; Governance;
Market; Reforms
Introduction
Located in the Horn of Africa, Ethiopia is bor-
dered by Eritrea in the north, Djibouti in the
northeast, Somalia in the east, Sudan in the west,
and Kenya in the south. Politically, Ethiopia
operates a federal parliamentary republic, with
nine regional states and with the government’s
official name as the Federal Democratic Republic
of Ethiopia (FDRE). It is the second most popu-
lous nation in Africa with a population of
104, 957,000 people. Amharic is the official lan-
guage in the multilingual nation of 90 different
languages or dialects.
The gross domestic product (GDP) in purchas-
ing power parity (PPP) is $199 billion with the
GDP per capita being $1899. Ethiopian economy
is agrarian with agricultural commodities domi-
nating its exports. The largest foreign exchange
© Springer Nature B.V. 2020
J. C. Shin, P. Teixeira (eds.), Encyclopedia of International Higher Education Systems and Institutions,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-9553-1_449-1
earner is coffee. It is the second biggest producer
of maize in Africa. In terms of natural resources, it
is endowed with copper, petroleum, gold, natural
gas, platinum, potash, and hydropower.
The education system is composed of 3 years
of preprimary education, 2 cycles of 8 years of
primary education, 2 cycles of 4 years of second-
ary education, and 3–7 years of higher education.
There are other alternative educational routes such
as Alternative Basic Education (ABE), Technical
Vocational Education and Training (TVET), and
Integrated Functional Adult Education (IFAE).
Literacy rates for 15–24 years, 15 years and
older, and 65 years and older are 54.98%, 39%,
and 13.68%, respectively. Compulsory education
lasts for 8 years from age 7 to age 14. From
primary to higher education, the academic year
begins in September and ends in July. The primary
to secondary school transition rate is 91.44% (UIS
2019). Ethiopia ranks 173 out of 189 countries
and territories in the United Nations Development
Programme (UNDP) human development index.
Higher Education
History
Close to two millennia of Ethiopian (higher) edu-
cation, the origin is connected to and influenced
by the Orthodox Church (Saint 2004; Wagaw
1990). The very first higher education institutions
(HEIs), established in the pre-modern Ethiopia,
were religious and monastic institutions (Lulat
2 Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Ethiopia
2005). In the fifth century, the Yared Music
School was formed to train qualified priests in
the religious music and dance that characterized
their faith (Bishaw and Melesse 2017). Higher
education in the modern Ethiopian era began in
the mid-twentieth century. In July 1950, the
Emperor Haile Selassie solicited for the help of
Jesuit Canadian teachers in establishing a college,
the University College of Addis Ababa [now
Addis Ababa University (AAU)]. The college
was established to prepare students for “further
overseas study or vocational certificate education”
(Lulat 2005, p. 268). Lulat (2005) further states
that uniquely the college was not directly affili-
ated with any foreign university for fear of losing
its autonomy and the exorbitance of being an
affiliated college. In the quest to expand the higher
sector to address access and manpower deficits,
six specialized technical colleges had been
established in the 1970s by the imperial regime
(Girma 1967) in addition to AAU and Haramaya
University established in 1953. Organizationally
the HEIs were more American compared to the
HEIs in the former British East African colonies.
After ousting the imperial regime in 1974, the
Derg regime expanded the higher education sys-
tems but steered HEIs based on communist/
Marxist-Leninist governance. “Government inter-
vention in university affairs expanded including
security surveillance, repression of dissent, man-
dated courses of Marxism-Leninism, prohibition
of students’ organization, appointment of senior
university officers and control of academic pro-
motion” (Bishaw and Melesse 2017, p. 33). The
regime that engineered the demise of the Derg in
1991 introduced market reforms in the (higher)
educational system (discussed in subsequent sec-
tions). Nevertheless by the end of the twentieth
century, the Ethiopian higher education system
had been characterized by regimented manage-
ment, conservative intellectual orientation, lim-
ited autonomy, very few academic staff with
doctorates, declining educational quality, weak
research output, and loose connection with the
global higher education currents (Bishaw 2006;
Saint 2004).
System Governance
The reforms of the higher education sector were
ushered with the initiation of the Education and
Training Policy (ETP) aligned with the national
growth and poverty reduction strategy (Yizengaw
2003). This policy was created to infuse quality,
access, relevance, and equity in the Ethiopian
higher education system (FDRE 1994). It was
the rostrum for subsequent policies and initiatives.
The first, Education Sector Development Program
(EDSP), which is in its fifth phase of implemen-
tation (ESDP V), is geared toward using educa-
tion tools in transforming Ethiopia as a middle-
income country. Second, two ministerial policies,
Teacher Education System Overhaul (TESO) and
Higher Education System Overhaul (HESO), led
to the promulgation of the Higher Education Act
in 2003 (Eshete 2008). Third, the Higher Educa-
tion Proclamation (HEP) (351/2003) was issued
to regulate the expanding higher education system
in order to produce high-quality and skilled man-
power in line with FDRE’s development needs; to
direct research to problem solving and adequate
harnessing of Ethiopian resources, relevance, aca-
demic freedom, and accountability; and to high-
light the contribution of private HEIs to Ethiopia’s
education (Bishaw and Melesse 2017). The 2003
HEP was modified in 2009 (No. 650/2009).
The Higher Education Relevance and Quality
Agency (HERQA) and the Higher Education
Strategy Center (HESC) were established under
the Proclamation. The HERQA and the HESC are
accountable to the Federal Ministry of Education
(FMOE). The HESC is in charge of vision formu-
lation and strategy for the Ethiopian higher edu-
cation system. It is mandated by law to coordinate
together with the FMOE and its agencies the
Ethiopian National Qualifications Framework
(ENQF) process and implementation. The
HERQA is responsible for accreditation,
reaccreditation, and program and institutional
quality audits of HEIs. It accredits private HEIs
but only conducts an institutional program audits
for public institutions. In its institutional and pro-
gram quality audits, HERQA focuses on ten areas
anchored on four main areas of quality assurance:
context, input, process, and outcome (Adamu and
Adamu 2012). In 2010 the HERQA was
Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Ethiopia
subsumed under the Education and Training
Quality Assurance Agency (ETQAA), which
was formed to have a broad quality assurance
mandate on all educational institutions. HERQA
was made to revert to its old mandate of specifi-
cally assuring the quality of Ethiopian HEIs (Pinar
2013).
With the ESDP V and the new Ethiopian Edu-
cation Roadmap (2018–2030), the government
plans to institutionally differentiate HEIs based on
program offerings, functional focus, institutional
status, student composition, etc. Concerning
TVET, the National TVET Strategy and the
National TVET Qualifications Framework were
developed in 2006 to enhance the recognition,
quality, and relevance of TVET (FMOE 2006a, b).
Institutional Management
Before the HEP, the Ethiopian government
appointed university Presidents and Vice Presi-
dent. According to the HEP (2009), boards are
the highest governing body in public HEIs with
the highest academic body being the Senate. The
seven member boards are accountable to the
MOE, and each chair and three other members
are appointed by the Minister. The rest are
appointed by the Minister based on the university
President’s nomination. The university President
is appointed by the Minister based on the board’s
nomination (Melu 2016). The Presidents are
assisted by Vice Presidents in the academic run-
ning of the HEIs. Private HEIs are led by Presi-
dents and assisted by Executive Vice Presidents
but are immune from governmental appointments.
Unlike public universities, “the majority of Ethi-
opian private HEIs is for-profit institutions owned
as Private Limited Companies (PLC)” (Tamrat
and Teferra 2019, p. 4); however, the FMOE
monitors their governance through HERQA.
Higher Education Institutions (Public HEIs
Vs. Private HEIs)
Public HE (as indicated earlier in the “History”
section) predate the establishment of private
HEIs. The successor of the Derg government,
following the encouragement of institutions like
the World Bank in the 1990s, liberalized the
higher education sector by permitting the estab-
lishment of private HEIs. Institutions such as the
3
Awassa Adventist College, People to People Col-
lege, and Unity College (now Unity University)
were set up. Hitherto, private HEIs were pro-
hibited from existence (Lulat 2005). Ethiopian
HEIs have considerably expanded from the
1990s (Saint 2004; Tamrat 2017; Teferra 2005).
There are over 130 public universities, over 70 pri-
vate HEIs (Nega 2012) which have expanded
from 1 in 1990 C.E. (Tamrat 2003) and had
grown by 40% between 1999/2000 and 2001/
2002 (World Bank 2003), 36 colleges of teacher
education that offer diploma program (Aweke
et al. 2017), and other colleges operating under
different ministries: the Ministry of National
Defense and the Ministry of Capacity Building
(Nega 2012).
In terms of enrollment, public universities
account for 87% of undergraduate enrollment
and 94.4% of postgraduate enrollment with an
improvement in the participation rate from 4% in
1999 to 9% in 2014/2015. Private HEIs account
for 13% of the total enrollment constituting
110, 000 students with a marginal improvement
in undergraduate enrollment from 14% in 1999 to
about 15.4% in 2014/2015. Female students
accounted for 34.7% of the total undergraduate
enrollment and 33.1% and 43.7% of public HEIs
and private HEIs enrollment, respectively (Nega
2017). The statistics concerning graduates from
undergraduate and graduate programs for the
2010/2011 academic year was 81,598, of which
11,053 (14%) graduated from private HEIs. Mas-
ter’s enrollment in public HEIs increased from
7211 in 2007/2008 to 27,643 in 2013/2014. Doc-
torate enrollment in programs increased from
258 in 2007/2008 to 3169 in 2013/2014.
The student-teacher ratio in 2014 for students
enrolled in regular classes is 1:16 and 1:23 when
students of regular and non-regular classes were
considered. The policy clearly articulates the
70:30 undergraduate professional mix in favor of
science and technology over humanities and
social sciences (FMOE 2008). Relative to the
recommended staff qualification mix of HEI aca-
demic staff ratio of 0:70:30 Bachelor/Master’s/
PhD, 27:58:15 ratio has been achieved. However
only AAU is able to meet this requirement
(Kebede et al. 2011; Semela 2011a, b cited in
Van Deuren et al. 2016). In 2013/2014,
4 Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Ethiopia
19 universities provided postgraduate training
with 48% of them enrolled in AAU (Akalu 2016).
A significant role Ethiopian HEIs have been
playing is the offering of distance education pro-
grams. Both private HEIs such as Alpha,
St. Mary’s Unity, Admas, etc. and public HEIs
such as Bahir Dar University, Mekelle University,
Jimma University, and AAU are instrumental in
the expansion of distance education courses in
diploma and degree programs. More so public
universities such as AAU, Gondar, and Jimma
have initiated modular graduate programs (Abiy
2005; Bishaw and Melesse 2017). Tamrat and
Teferra (2019) nonetheless underscore not only
the risks private HEIs face but also the arbitrary
governmental treatment of private HEIs in Ethio-
pia. The government banned private HEIs from
undertaking teacher education programs in 2010
[(and law programs (Tamrat and Levy 2017)]
without any prior warnings or transitional
arrangements, and the temporal ban of distance
education programs in 2012 utterly affected the
private HEIs. The governmental actions contra-
vened decisions on program quality based on reg-
ulatory frameworks. The two programs are major
sources of revenue for such institutions, and as
such the restrictive regulation on them affects the
survival and capacity of private HEIs.
In addition to the benefits public HEIs offer
such as access, private HEIs offer courses and
programs that create employment opportunities
such as business administration, computer stud-
ies, information technology (IT), health care, and
teacher education. Hence, albeit most of them are
non-elite HEIs, they are a “mix of demand-
absorbing and more effective job-market ori-
ented” (Tamrat and Levy 2017, p. 20).
Out of the 70 private HEIs, only 4 (Unity,
St. Mary’s, Admas, Rift Valley universities) are
fully fledged universities (Tamrat and Teferra
2019). Unity University was the first private HEI
to become a fully fledged university. Nega (2012)
asserts the disparity in the public-private HEI
divide in terms of regulation and accreditation,
admissions, student numbers, financing, and
profit motive.
Other challenges faced by private HEIs are
transient and unstable regulations characterized
by red tape and operational rigidities, high cost
of leased buildings in Addis Ababa, shortage of
high-quality human resources, and the increasing
focus on profit motive by most of them at the
expense of quality (Tamrat 2008; Teferra 2005)
Financing
The FMOE in Addis Ababa oversees the higher
education system of Ethiopia. Its financial over-
sight is however limited to public HEIs. In 2014/
2015, the educational expenditure was 37.1% of
the national budget, and higher education’s share
of the recurrent and capital budget was 48%
(FMOE 2015). One of the facets of the higher
education reforms was the introduction of cost
sharing. This policy was implemented via “a grad-
uate tax” where graduates were required to pay at
least 10% of their income as tax to the Ethiopian
government (Ayalew 2013; Molla 2014). How-
ever students foot 15% of tuition fees, while the
government pays the rest. The implication of the
cost sharing policy was that HEIs had to be inno-
vative to internally generate their own income.
Internally generated income sources from HEIs
are from consultancy, contract research, short
courses, etc. constituting 20% of the cost. The
Ethiopian system is planning to implement a
performance-based funding formula based on
block grants to the public HEIs. As seen in
Table 1, the government does not fund private
HEIs. The latter relies heavily on tuition fees as
sources of funding.
Challenges/Issues in Ethiopian Higher
Education
In addition to financing, the higher education sys-
tem is fraught with challenges and issues border-
ing on quality. Quality is constrained by certain
factors: disparity between student enrollment and
teaching staff evident in the student teacher ratio
from 1:8 in 1995 and 1:15 in 2011 (Reisberg and
Rumbley 2011) to 1:16 in 2014; inadequate qual-
ified staff to fill vacant positions in the HEIs; and
infrastructure deficit characterized by limited lec-
ture rooms, computer laboratories, libraries and
their collections, generators to serve power needs
of the HEIs during erratic power cut periods, and
so forth (Nega 2012; Reisberg and Rumbley 2011;
Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Ethiopia 5

Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Ethiopia, Table 1 Issues/challenges underlying the public-private
divide
Public HEIs
Established by regulation
Are not subject to accreditation
Admission – MOE assigns students
Best student numbers
Fully funded by government
including research funding
Not-for-profit making
Source: (Nega 2017)
Private HEIs
Have to pass through rigorous accreditation processes by HERQA
Are not allowed to operate without licenses
Demand absorbing, cater for excess demand from public universities
Compete to admit only a tiny proportion of all students and mostly from low-
performing applicants, challenge to get best students
No government funding or subsidy in the form of student loans and student or
institutional grants
For-profit and non-profit. Their survival heavily depends on students’ tuition
fees

Semela 2011a, b). More so, quality constraints are Cross-References

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The quality of teaching and learning is ham-
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the Ethiopian government and universities. The
former focuses on utmost enrollment of students
in public universities and their programs, while
the latter focuses on quality academic education.
This has resulted in excessive state intervention
and lack of autonomy leading low outputs of
universities (Areaya 2010).
The substandard qualities of universities and
indeed all HEIs have brought to the fore the urgent
need for differentiation. Tamrat (2019) under-
scores the fact that regarding the missions,
visions, governance structure, student admission
policies, core activities, and the disciplinary mix
defining program offering among public universi-
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daunting challenge relative to this issue
concerning public HEIs is the Roadmap not pro-
viding the lack of direction of the differentiation
(Tamrat 2019). This can lead to a nominal differ-
entiated system of public HEIs characterized with
haphazard activities and functions.
▶ Higher Education Systems and Institutions,
Liberia
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