The education level in Ethiopia has been questionable for sometime now. Though many people point to the education policy in the country, some people Capital spoke to , question the professionalism of teachers and the quality of education in many private colleges.

It wouldn't be a surprise to meet a manager of a business who has come across an accounting graduate who can't do a balance sheet or a marketing graduate who doesn't know the basics of marketing.

Capital , being concerned about the level of education in Ethiopia , contacted a few of the private colleges and talked to them about the level of education and the quality of subjects given in private colleges.

Almost similar questions were of course presented to an official at the Ministry of Education, who elaborated on how colleges could be accredited and the quality of education is monitored.

The quality of teachers in Ethiopia has also been a matter of concern for as long as can be remembered. Many professionals who talked to Capital believe that teachers in Ethiopia have never been trained to become teachers; a matter that has come to the attention of both the Ministry of Education and, of course, hiring colleges.

Q- Why do you feel that your institution is unfairly dealt with on various aspects since its establishment? One can mention the recent public announcements you issued about Unity College in relation to circulating rumors?

Dr. Fisseha Eshetu: Unity has been at the forefront ever since private higher institutions started operating in the country and since our establishment, we have been trying to improve the quality of the education we offer. We strongly believe in the provision of quality education for the public. That is the cornerstone of our principle. We have enshrined quality as the major theme in our mission, and vision in all our operations. As you know, maintaining quality is not an easy affair. Quality means different things to different people and in order to attain quality you have to take care of many things. It is not because we are afraid of attaining quality that we made our recent announcement. The note is about how different higher institutions deal with one another. It has really been unfair. At Unity whether we like it or not, we are in business, although we are providing education. For you to grow in business you don't necessarily have to defame others. I personally believe that the best way for you to succeed in business is to create your own identity. Be who you are and do whatever you believe in, you should not copy others. That's what we have seen in our case. The major ingredient for success is to never copy others. We don't base our activities on what others do. For the last three years, since the emergence of other private institutions, many people are involved in the defamation of our institution. Especially there are a few colleges, which I don't want to mention by name, but the public knows who they are. They think they can't succeed if they do not defame Unity.

Q- Have you taken any legal measures like taking them to court?

A- The way they do it is in a very subtle manner. For instance, three years ago it was rumored that Unity had gone bankrupt and so on. They have really mastered distorting information and affecting our institution's image. This has really created chaos and terror amongst our students and staffs and last year, they said Unity can not find students to register. In fact we had too many students, so we had to rent new buildings to accommodate them. They target this time of the registration period, they say so and so college has been the top one for the last three years, in a competition we have not heard about. I don't understand why they have to concentrate on others, they can talk about themselves but not Unity. For three years, we have kept quiet, this means you have accepted what they are saying, that is why we discussed with the management and decided it is high time we said something. First, there is no competition we are aware of that took place, in fact we tried to verify the information with the quality assurance agency at the Ministry of Education. They did not conduct any competition and they have no intention to conducting any.

Q- Would you say that Unity and the other colleges are bona-fide institutions of higher education or simply stopgap means of meeting the high student demand?

A- First of all, we have to take the country into consideration. This is a country of over 77 million people where most people are poor and uneducated. There is no way of bringing development other than providing education. This is very basic, you can not build a house without the foundation and you can not build a nation without education. We are part and parcel of the overall economy and the development that is taking place in the country. People have to acknowledge that and so should the government. Some people consider us as a simple business entity but imagine the number of people we have graduated so far. Imagine the number of people who have gone out from Unity and contributed their part to the community. The government may be building a number of Universities, but how many Universities are adequate for a population of 77 million? People have to consider the contribution we have made to the community as being very critical to the development of the country. That's how I see my institution and the others. Provided that we compete fairly; I believe there is more than enough of a market for all of us, not only to compete but there are ample opportunities for us to collaborate. Unfortunately, many people don't see it that way. It is very unfortunate to see some officials thinking that private institutions don't have this kind of mentality. We are not just a stop-over; we are great contributors to the economy.

Q- Is Unity a self sufficient organization or does it have access to funding?

A- That is one of the rumors heared, here and there. My name was mentioned, saying that I was getting support from the EPRDF, some were talking about the CIA and others, religious associations. Let me tell you the truth. We do not get a penny from anyone. For the scholarship project, we have more than 1500 students that we are teaching on our own. If I have 40-50 students in a class, what does it take me to add a couple more? The teacher is there, the class is there. What does it take to add a couple of chairs in a class? We have the girl's project that I was talking about earlier. In that project, there are some NGOs supporting it. We give these girls the dormitory, the NGOs support them with pocket money and other expenses. Other than that, Unity does not have any other help. If the government were supporting us, why did we have to go through all the troubles in the last three or four years. I don't want to mention any details but we are not getting any money from any other government. We are self sufficient, we are funding our selves. We take loans from the banks and operate like any other business.

Q- How do you rate the educational standard of the country? Do you think the policy meets the educational objective that it is intended for- producing a skilled labor force?

A- Frankly speaking, I have my doubts about the entire education policy and I am entitled to have doubts. We will have to wait and see what comes out of it but I have serious doubts, I am not supporting it and I am not against it. I see lots of gaps and there has not been made enough preparation. Things are proceeding in a trial and error approach and this is very bad. I wish we could have gone through pilot phases. My institution is directly affected by it because our entire system has been changed, collapsed and we have seen it's impact. We take students from various high schools in the country. If the quality goes down at that level, definetly it will pull us down. Once these kids are bent, it is very difficult to straighten them out again. Definitely, the quality has gone down terribly, I personally believe it and that's what we see. Maybe, it will improve I don't know, there is so much money being pumped into the education sector. I think the fact that the government is allocating a lot of money for education is something that all of us need to commend and recognize. There are other alternatives though, rather than having one jacket and trying to fit everybody into that jacket. I would recommend for the government to open up and entertain the different possibilities. For instance, we are a private institution; I want my students, when they go out of our school, to be competent in the work arena.

Q. Do you think you are creating employable citizens? Is it true that students are never failed in private colleges?

Ato Debalkew Azale: CPU College has made a preliminary tracer study to know the whereabouts of its previous graduates. The study shows the following statistics.30% are continuing their further education in Addis Ababa University.50% are already employed in different institutions and successfully performing their duties. 10% are continuing their degree program in CPU College . 5% of them are currently found abroad. We can't trace the whereabouts of the remaining 5%. But, we are 100% sure that we are producing truly employable citizens. We don't know the status of other colleges, however, in CPU are many students who failed and were dismissed from the college.

Q. What does pre-accreditation mean? Do you know of any college being denied accreditation?

A. Pre-accreditation is permission given by the legal body to a newly established college with basic educational facilities to start the task. I don't know a college that has been denied accreditation.

Q. Do you think educational institutions have reached saturation levels?

A. I don't think so. The potential is there.

Q. Do you make a sudden increase of tuition fees with graduations?

A. This question is not clear to me. Do you mean tuition fees? If so, in most colleges, including CPU College , the payment is fixed and doesn't increase all of a sudden.

Q. Do you have adequate man power that is qualified to give a proper education?

A. The basic unit for education is qualified and ethical personnel. There is a serious problem in this regard. You can sometimes get an instructor employed in two or more colleges. It is very difficult to get a true full time instructor. It is even more difficult to convince an instructor to stay for a limited amount of consultation hours.

Q. Do you think you are creating employable citizens?

Ato Tilahun Molla - I strongly believe that our graduates have gained truly workable skills which were tested in the world of work through the internship program. The total number of work time for the internship is 936 hours, which would enable our graduates not only test the practical applicability of what they have learnt in the class but also gain new experiences and acquaint themselves to new social realities. Besides, the program is more student –centred so that students will be able to solve practical problems.

It may be said in a sense that if our trainees have educational problems of some kind, instructors are very much sensitive to it, target the deficiency and solve the problem. This will ultimately enhance the trainee capability and competency. But, there are a number of instances in which students may fail, like continuous absence from classes.

Q. What does pre-accreditation mean? Do you know any college denied for accreditation after requesting it?

A- Indeed, pre-accreditation and accreditation procedures are quite important to see through whether or not the institution is capable of providing the training. The requirements stated in the procedures are important but the former procedure may not be necessary, as long as the requirements for the second are fulfilled.

Q. Do you think educational institutions have reached saturation levels?

A- I don't think so, at least not at this moment. Don't forget new businesses are being established and the prospects we have ahead.

Q. Do you make a sudden increase of tuition fees during graduations?

A- We don't have this kind of problem. Right from the very out set, there is an agreement between the trainees and the institution as to the payment and I think it is binding.

Q. Do you have adequate man power that is qualified to give a proper education?

A- There is a shortage of instructors in all areas especially in the field of law.

Dr. Tesfaye Teshome Central Director of Higher Education Relevance and Quality Agency (HERQA) at the Ministry of Education

Q. Can you tell Capital readers about your office and its duty with regard to the quality of higher education?

Dr. Tesfaye Teshome: Our office aggressively begun its activity about a year ago. So far we are developing manuals, protocols, procedures, and laws. We were also busy in critically analyzing other countries' higher education quality controlling experiences and adopting some.

Now we are setting the standards for both accredited private and government higher institutions. Next year we are planning to take 9 private and 9 government higher institutions and evaluate them according to these standards. We have already told them that quality should primarily be the concern of the institutions themselves. It is not something we can say is the responsibility of X and Y. It concerns everybody. Therefore, every institution has to have its own quality care unit. To do this we have prepared mechanisms of organizing, composing, responsibility and terms of reference for this unit.

Professionals have taken training in the Netherlands and South Africa on what to do and how to achieve the desired quality higher education. At the end of the day we want to reach the stage when these institutions invite us to accredit them like ISO; to show their quality to the public and benefit from it.

We have also conducted three big national workshops with regard to the quality of higher education that tried to answer questions such as what is meant by quality and standards, and how they will be acquired. The proceedings of these workshops is published and disseminated to all parties and is also available on our website. Note this; any information and research which has a relation to Ethiopian higher education is available on our website.

Q. On what basis does your office give pre-accreditation?

A. There are lists of requirements set by our office before giving pre-accreditation.

To mention some of them, the first thing we see is if the education and training given by the institute is secular. Secondly we make sure that the education and training is given in English. Thirdly, we make sure that the institution's student accepting mechanism is not based on religion, sex or nationality. We also see that the students that go to the institute are students that completed preparatory education and took college entrance examinations. The other thing we look for is if the institution is planning to give education in a rented building. We ensure that the institute has at least signed a five year rental agreement to give education at degree level. We also see if the applicant has an investment license. If the investor is planning to open health colleges, he/she has to bring a license from the Ministry of Health. These are only the baselines.

Following this, the application of the investor will be evaluated by professionals and based on the investor, will be accepted or denied.

More details on this are available at our web-site www.higher.ed.et

Q. Have there been any applicants who have been denied accreditation by your office so far?

Dr. Tesfaye By the way, when I say denied that does not mean to discourage investors that show an interest in education. We indicate to them what they need to fulfill. But this does not also mean we compromise quality of higher education in order to encourage investment. For instance, according to information at hand, we denied 33% of applicants for pre-accreditation.

Q. Does your office have any follow-up mechanisms to control the quality of pre- accredited institutions?

A. Two things have to be clear here. Giving pre-accreditation and accreditation and quality enhancement follow-up activities should be seen separately.

Giving pre-accreditation and accreditation means the process of recognizing an institution's capacity and ability to give education on a certain discipline. And what we call quality audit or enhancement is looking at the verification of qualities and standards set forth by the institute as a goal or vision. It is more of a general system and quality based quality audit activity. From the experience of other countries and our belief, this quality audit activity has to be taken with the interest the institute. So far any where in the world there is no such sudden check up without the knowledge and interest of the institute. To do this quality control has to be built into system. Unless this quality controlling unit is built in, the institutions themselves check up with agencies like ours once in three or four years will not bring about the required quality of education.

Therefore, what we are doing now is that an institution, especially private, after accomplishing the requirements set by our office, is given one year for pre-accreditation. But before we give accreditation for three years, we set for quality audit activity. By the way quality audit activity is our assessment of an institution's general capacity, ability, and the like to teach and do research and its outcome. This system has already been set and protocols are prepared. All 43 private institutions that give degree level education and 9 public universities have included their views and piloting work is also done. Now we are able to check whether an institute has fulfilled the learning objectives or not. After the approval of the board we have disseminated copies to all of these institutions.

Q. Can you be a little more specific about the difference between pre-accreditation and accreditation?

A. Pre-accreditation refers to the minimum thresholds that an institution is required to fulfill when an investor in the sector wants to be engaged in a higher education business. We only give this for one year.

When we come to accreditation, we give it for three years. Before we accredit an institution, we check, through a quality audit, if the institution has produced quality professionals that the country needs.

If, for instance, an institution has a three year BA program on a certain discipline, we check every curriculum, the learning objective and physically go there to see if the leadership, teachers, students, library, and all the necessary facilities are appropriate to meet the set learning objectives by the institution. Therefore, the student and the teacher as stakeholders are accountable to the system. Moreover, the curriculum will be evaluated; we also check resources in the library, laboratory and the accomplishment of the graduates in the market will also be evaluated. Regarding the instructors, we check how much research the instructor planned, implemented, how many of these are published and reached society.

Q. Can you tell us more about the qualities of the instructors?

A. According to our quality audit, for instance in health, language, computer and engineering fields of study, one instructor is not allowed to teach more than 20 students in a class. For business and law the ratio goes 1 to 40. When we see it in terms of instructors composition, 30% of the instructors in an institution have to be PhD holders, 50% MA, and 20% BA. But, this is ideally: there is no institution that has applied it 100% in our country, but based on the government's willingness to encourage higher education we are pushing forward towards these standards.

Q. Does any institution have the right to call itself a university?

A. In most countries, the right to name a higher institution as a university is left to the Council of Ministers. For instance, in Britain it is up to the Queen to call an institution a university. By the way, university indicates its universality. The meaning of college differs from country to country. In our country's case most people undermine the meaning of college and assume that it only gives 12+2, but in other countries there are colleges that give PhDs, MAs, and the like. According to our proclamation 351/2003, the right to name an institution a university is left only to the Ministry of Education or government. Whereas an institution can call itself a university college if it has graduated three times in a degree program and has three different campuses, among other things.

Rahma Ahmed recently completed her first year at a private medical college, which she does not want to name. She said that the college has not taught her what she had expected to learn. She has just completed the first year without learning much.

She said that she will not be confident enough to give proper service to the public as a nurse.

The application process in Western countries to enroll in a medical college will take about a year. It is a grueling process, with many sections of multiple applications, many essays to write, and countless interviews. It is something that you really need to want in order to be able to go through the difficult process.

But the situation here is the exact opposite. Most private medical schools would take students that have not even passed the School Leaving Certificate Exams.

Rahma said ‘If I had to do it all over again, I would not have applied to as many schools to get accepted. I would just go to my nearest private college that would give any course and start my studies.'

The obvious goal of an applicant to medical school is to get into the most prestigious institution to which he or she can be accepted.

A private medical college owner said that for instance, if you're interested in primary care, you won't be happy at a medical school that is a leader in research but gives you little patient contact in the first two years. On the other hand, if you're interested in becoming an academic physician or a biomedical researcher, a school whose mission is to educate family practitioners may leave you pining for the lab.

He said that apart from the students that are very poor in their academic performance, the education bureau that gives accreditation to these colleges is not capable enough.

He said that his medical college has been reviewed by a couple of officials who do not even have a clue of what a medical college should have. They are not health professionals or even in a related field.

He added, “by our own standards, we claim we are creating qualified medical students that are going to lay the foundation for a viable health system”.

In our college, the first two years of school are typically devoted to advanced studies of basic medical sciences, such as anatomy, microbiology, and pathology. Traditionally, students take four or five courses in each discipline simultaneously. However, some schools focus on a single subject for a shorter block of time—say, three or four weeks—then move on to another. Alternately, some schools take an interdisciplinary approach to pre-clinical coursework, in which each class focuses on a single organ, examining all the anatomy, pharmacology, pathology, and behavior relevant to that system.

In the third and fourth years of medical school, you will make your first serious foray into clinical work . As many students go on to do their residency in a hospital affiliated with their school, where you make clinical rotations can ultimately be more important than the medical school you attend.

In addition, consider the hospital's size, specialties, facilities, technology, and mortality rate in the country. Where can you train to become the physician you want to be?, he said completing his comment with puzzled wonderment .