The last few years have been turbulent for the Ethiopian education system. Officials at the Ministry of Education have been on a campaign to change the status quo in higher education, which has long prioritized enrollment rates. The comprehensive and controversial reform program has drawn skepticism from many, but officials at the Ministry of Education argue it is too early to judge.
Public universities in Ethiopia have also faced serious challenges related to financial transparency, with misuse of public funds remaining a serious concern.
Kora Tushune, who previously served as vice president of Jimma University, now leads the higher education division at the Ministry of Education as a State Minister. The Reporter’s Bewket Abebe sat down with him to gain insights into pressing issues facing higher education in Ethiopia. EXCERPTS:
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The Reporter Magazine: The Ministry of Education claims it has introduced a system that ensures quality education, but concerns linger over a significant dip in the quantity, which has been a hallmark of the Ethiopian education system for more than two decades. On the other hand, there is no tangible evidence for improvement in the quality of education. Many question the effectiveness of the system. What is your take on this?
Kora Tushune: You are right when you say that Ethiopia has achieved a lot in terms of access and coverage. Beginning in the 1990s, there was a huge expansion of universities, not only in terms of number, but also in geographical distribution and equity.
Universities were expanding in rounds – we call them generations. Now we have fourth generation universities. Each round saw, on average, the addition of six to seven universities. With that came huge enrollment that suddenly jumped very close to the sub-Saharan average. That actually lasted for, I would say, the first ten years. Everybody was happy with it. Then the problems began to emerge, especially with the introduction of the 70-30 ratio, with 70 percent going to science and engineering, and 30 percent going to the humanities and social sciences.
Universities admitted a large number of engineers who, I would say, have also transformed the construction sector. It was a very good development. But the pace of the economic growth, and also the way we train our students, was problematic. We failed to train them to be able to create their own jobs.
The quality of education was problematic even before, but with the huge expansion of higher education, the problems got worse.
Now we have a huge number of students with limited faculties, inadequate facilities, and with the level of funding and budget not growing. Quality was somewhat affected as we focused more on quantity, leaving us with limited capacity even in terms of maintaining previous quality, let alone improving it.
As for quality markers in relation to the ongoing reform, there are what we call indicators: input indicators, process indicators, and output indicators.
One of the output indicators could be the exit exam. If students perform well on the exit exam, that’s an output indicator. The profile of academic staff is an input indicator. For example, in a research university, 75 percent of the faculty must be PhD holders and the remaining 25 percent must hold master’s degrees. Some of our universities may only have 15 percent of faculty with a PhD.
But the most valuable indicators would be the outcome or impact indicators. How do our graduates impact our economy? How are our graduates making Ethiopia or the industry competitive, compared to the global industry?
How do you measure the impact indicators at the Ministry level? Do you have any means of compiling data in this regard?
These things are difficult to measure. We need to know whether those students are employed. If they are employed, what type of jobs are they doing? Are they doing the jobs that they were trained for? Those are things to be considered in the impact indicator. But, you know, it is not easy. But that is the way we define it.
Given that some time has passed since the reform’s implementation, it is reasonable to assess process indicator performance. Assuming strong process indicators translate to positive outcomes, are there any early signs suggesting the desired quality will be achieved in the coming years?
Yes. The process indicators contribute. What is important here is that quality should happen in people’s minds first. I am optimistic that quality can be achieved if it happens in the minds of the student, the faculty, the university leadership, and that of the society at large.
Let me give you a simple example: entrance and exit exams. What is happening now is that students come to realize that either they study hard or they won’t pass exams. The foundation of quality is the students’ motivation to study hard. That is a signal to see the quality of education.
Now that signal is changing in everybody. The incentive has shifted. Now quality is more important than quantity. Take the case of private colleges, for instance. It’s no longer about graduating students and offering certificates. Being able to produce students that can pass exit exams has now become a responsibility. Nobody will register in their college next time if they fail to do so.
That’s why I said quality happens in people’s minds. Now, in the initial phase, I see that happening to families, students, the institutions, the faculty and administration. I believe that makes a difference.
What makes you say so?
Everybody gets stressed when performance and exit exam results are not good at an institution, be it public or private. We see enrollment going down in private colleges. If you want to continue in business, the performance should be good. As a Ministry, we see that mentality coming. On the other hand, you see opposing interests especially from those stakeholders affected by the new system. That tension is very important for society to change. Previously, when students sat for exams, somebody at the bottom could score 4.0. The grade had lost its value. But now that has changed.
We have seen a drastic decline in university enrollment figures over the past few years. Similarly, we know that securing employment, whether through self-employment or traditional means, also presents challenges for those young people who are not able to attend university. As a Ministry, where do you want them to end up? What is your plan for them?
Allow me to mention one thing about the Ethiopian education system. We have 47 public universities. Almost all of them do exactly the same thing. We train everybody like they will become academics, lecturers at university, or teaching somewhere. Most of us subconsciously believe that ‘education’ necessarily means university education, which is very much different from the global scenario. People go to other institutions, other than universities, like TVETs [technical and vocational education and training institutes], for instance. In Ethiopia, most of the people who go to universities study theoretical aspects only.
A young man attends university and fails to secure a job. And he goes back to his parents in the countryside and remains a burden to his family. He does not have any skill in farming so he relies on his brother, who missed school but acquired good knowledge in agriculture. In our education system, graduates are nothing unless they secure a job somewhere. That is not basically the aim of education. It doesn’t help anyone. It actually disempowers people. It creates what I would call ‘livelihood disability.’ People working in the construction sector without university degrees usually earn better than our graduates.
So, part of the reform now is that if somebody drops out, even from high school, they will be given the opportunity to join vocational education. That is why the curriculum is changed. Even without TVET, one can live and be able to do a job. Missing university is not the end of the world. In Ethiopia, there is a gap in perception.
Do you believe the reform is successfully enabling more people to attend TVET programs and gain valuable skills, ultimately improving their lives as claimed?
Our TVETs are not really great. That is undeniable. But, I do not have much to say about it as it is no longer under the Ministry of Education.
Who administers TVETs, if not the Ministry of Education?
It used to be under this Ministry, but now it’s under the Ministry of Labor and Skills. It has been a year or two since that happened, before I assumed office actually. Is that a good way of organizing? I’m not sure.
Leaving that aside, the idea of TVETs has now been fundamentally shifted. There are different levels of TVETs. There has to be a way to make sure that students dropping out of school join the labor market. The direction is to make sure that those who are unable to join universities will have ample options to create their own jobs, have their own livelihoods, and pursue their own dreams. The policy is very clear on that. But actual delivery on the ground might be a bit different for many reasons.
During this transition period, even university graduates can face challenges entering the job market, let alone the dropouts, due to the reasons you already know. To be honest, it is only a couple of years now and it is not yet as clean as we want it to be.
The agenda of university-industry linkage has been around since 2005, but has amounted to little more than talk. On the one hand, many of the millions of university and college graduates are unable to secure jobs. On the other, businesses struggle to meet their needs in the educated labor market. This glaring disconnect raises serious doubts over the implementation of university-industry linkage, which is little more than a buzzword at the moment. What needs to change for industry and academia to finally bridge this gap, and what does the future hold for education in serving the needs of the job market?
I agree with you in a way that so far the university- industry linkage has been mostly a kind of rhetoric. You don’t see it much on the ground. One of the problems is that our teachers have no industry background. Similarly, our students do not have the opportunity to go into industry, partly because of funding problems. What we used to see was, there was this supportive environment, but concrete resource allocation was not there. Now a proclamation is issued. The University Industry Linkage proclamation, which is proclamation number 1298, was issued a few months ago. That is considered a milestone.
Previously, industries could reject university-appointed student trainees. There was no enforcement. But now this proclamation provides an enforcement framework and there are at least seven directives for the details. A certain percentage of every government budget should go towards the implementation of the university-industry linkage program. There is serious commitment now. There are two things we’re going to do: internship for students in the industry, and what we call extensions for the faculty.
We all know that in some cities, in some regions, there are not enough industries. It’s a problem. They [students, faculty] can stay somewhere for up to two months. Where do they sleep? What do they eat? How do they live? It was previously very superficial, but now, it will be funded properly to cover their costs. The aim is to create what we call a university-industry fund.
The education sector consistently ranks among the largest recipients of the federal budget, receiving over 20 percent. Higher education absorbs the lion’s share, but is often cited as an area of budget misuse. Annual audit reports regularly showcase poor financial management at public universities, as well as financial irregularities. These not only raise questions about efficiency, but also damage public trust in these institutions, as people come to associate universities with corruption. As someone who has served in a senior administrative role at a public university, what do you think is the core problem in this regard?
You are right; many of them are in an unfavorable audit opinion. The assumption is that universities are relatively to act like they are governed by a board. They operate under oversight of the board and the leadership. Unfortunately; that has not been the case. Things are getting worse mostly due to poor oversight. Getting the right people in the right place is still a huge gap. Poor background screening of officials is a problem. Individuals should be carefully considered, especially in terms of ethical track record. Then they should be overseen by a capable system. But what I see is that universities are getting more into a kind of ethical slippery slope because of the context of the country. By the way, this aspect [the budget] is because we see it audited. How about other aspects? We usually audit property, finance, construction, etc. If you audit other aspects, you mostly see a lot of irregularities happening.
What seems to be the problem? In your experience leading Jimma University, which areas have you observed to be most susceptible to corruption?
Universities are now being reported as corrupt with lots of irregularities because of the context. It is also externally encouraged. Which areas are more prone? The usual suspects are construction projects. Universities are engaged in various constructions compared to other sectors. What I see is that this area is inherently prone. There is no doubt about that. Major procurements are the other area. The external environment is ready to trap you. Usually, there are external facilitators.
By and large, the sector is one of the major receivers of budget and public finance. Plus, universities are involved in huge construction projects, worth billions. They also procure a lot of stuff. These things coupled with the external environment, which encourages and facilitates irregularities, make these institutions highly prone to corrupted practices.
In Jimma, I don’t want to say much about it, but its image was not any better than others, especially in the latest reports. It was not any better. I’ve heard that, apparently, it is now among the clean universities. However, one thing you are very likely to notice when all these reports come is that there is no way that a certain university’s report, which sounds clean this year, will be clean next year.
In your role leading the Ministry’s higher education division, what strategies do you think should be developed to improve public university audit results and ensure more efficient use of public funds?
Some of those reports became adverse because there are no regulations, rules, and directives. These were supposed to be there. Another one is because most of the leaders are academicians. They don’t have the skill and capacity to really lead the finance and administration aspects. What we do is we put that in the KPI, in which the university’s leadership group is evaluated based on the performance in those areas too. As a Ministry, we do capacity building. We work with other organizations like the Ministry of Finance and the Office of Auditor General. We work together to make sure that our universities have that capacity. We work with the civil service also to have the right kind of environment, especially in terms of introducing a compensation system that can attract the skilled manpower to the universities.
Naturally, universities are supposed to serve as gateways to “universal knowledge” and “universality,” fostering a sense of national unity and progress. In Ethiopia’s historical context, particularly during the 1950s, universities played a crucial role in nation-building alongside the military. However, the current reality paints a different picture. A trend has emerged where universities seem to be increasingly anchored to their local contexts. A majority of students enrolled in state universities tend to be from the surrounding localities. Management positions are often filled by individuals from the local area. Assigning university presidents based on local origin has become the new normal. Where will these ways of doing business take us? What ways out do you see?
You are absolutely right. Excellence is supposed to thrive in diversity and merit. Universities are supposed to be institutions of merit and excellence. The Ministry has a strong position on diversity. But the practice on the ground remains different. Universities do not operate in a vacuum. There is society around us – a culture, politics, everything. Yes, most of our university leaders are from the same region to say the least. This is quite an unhealthy trend within Ethiopian higher education. Previously, even the faculties used to be diverse. But nowadays, everybody is moving back to their village. That is currently a very adverse trend in our higher education. It requires political discussion. I think we should critically discuss, do something about it. That needs engaging different diverse stakeholders.
Are there any practical measures the Ministry intends to take in the near future?
If you ask me, I would say there is no strategy already put in place. There are discussions ongoing, but discussion cannot be something official. Personally, I have a plan to use diversity as one of the measures, part of a KPI. That’s the best way to put it. If you lose diversity, you lose points in your performance. And sooner or later, students will prefer a more diverse environment.
During your vice-presidency at Jimma University, how diversified was the staff and the management? Could you elaborate on what specific initiatives you undertook to promote diversity?
It is not about dictating to people. What is more important is to show people that it is for their own advantage. It’s not about having a law. The thing is that if you are diverse, you are more likely to succeed, you are more likely to be excellent, you are more likely to be competitive, and you are more likely to be attracting more students. For example, we have an office for ‘internationalization’. For exchange of ideas, it is better to have some more faculties to come even from other countries. The best universities in the world have diverse faculty. Most universities outside Addis are gradually losing diversity. I can tell you that Jimma University is not as diverse as it used to be. It was once one of the most diverse universities, but that has changed over time.
