Capital

Making the cut

With the opening up of the educational sector in Ethiopia, numerous private colleges have sprung up. Their rate of establishment, at the peak period, was so high that it resembled Bollywood's film production frequency. It was so normal during these times to see a college with just two class rooms in a shanty neighborhood. Most of the then colleges were poor both economically and academically. These colleges had a small start up capital and seemed to be left with hardly any money after their rents. There were even some that relied on income from registration fees to ensure their continued existence. With such a meager economic power, hiring qualified instructors and using a standardized curriculum were too much to accommodate for the 'colleges'.
However, the very small coverage of higher educational services to those in demand by the government allowed such colleges to enjoy a high number of students. The very low entrance requirements by these colleges meant that those who would not normally get access to higher education in the country had an alternative to change that around. This tremendous registration rate provided the colleges with more economic power allowing them to expand their campuses and hire more qualified personnel.
What followed was the creation of a relatively smaller number of colleges with relatively stronger economic muscles. Those that failed to capitalize on the huge demand for higher education vanished and those that performed well that time appeared as much bigger colleges. The bigger colleges rented bigger compounds or built their own campuses with branches both in and out of the capital city. The colleges became big enough to forge relations with other colleges in the developed world, construct modern libraries with recent books and digital information sources, build well equipped laboratories, and argue much better on their legality with the government.
Though the quality of education in most of such colleges has increased tremendously over the years, there are still complaints that it has to progress further remarkably. One of these complaints is that private colleges are lenient while grading their students. Some people argue that private colleges over grade their students with hopes of a good reputation, even if such a condition seems to back fire at times. Another related argument is that private colleges mostly do not terminate under performing students as that would have a negative impact over their income. Other complaints include the lack of qualified instructors and facilities that need to be fulfilled by a college.

Are private colleges up to the mark?

It would definitely be right to say that private colleges are below par as far as educational quality is concerned. As these colleges admit students who could not make it into the governmental universities, the quality of education provided for such students should be even of higher quality to make them understand things faster. I do not think private college graduates would match those of governmental universities and that has been evident in various job entrance exams.

Tariku, Engineer

Now that private colleges have become big institutions in our country, they have managed to pay more for lecturers luring teachers from the Addis Ababa University and even abroad to come and work for them. Some of them have even got libraries with more recent books than the famous Kennedy library. I don’t think the government is in a better position to blame private colleges for educational quality.

Markos, Database Administrator

I think private colleges care much more about their economic benefits than the quality of education they provide. Even though the two things are much related, I do not think the colleges have strict rules to invest on quality with plans to rip from their good reputations after some years.

Betru, Agronomist