Quality of Higher Education in Ethiopian Public Institutions

The last two decades have seen dramatic changes in Ethiopian higher education. System diversification, enrollment explosion, expansion in physical infrastructure, curricular overhaul and establishment of new types of institution - these are the areas of the most significant development in the sector. Nevertheless, it is the sharp decline in the quality of higher education that has been the subject of most concern for the academic community. Yet, very little public debate or research was conducted on this thorny issue, until the Forum for Social Studies (FSS), an independent think-tank in Ethiopia, took the initiative to organize a series of public discussion forums based on the outcome of its own studies on the subject. This bilingual volume (Amharic and English) presents six of the essays which are the results of the FSS initiative. They examine different aspects of quality such as pre-university academic competence of students, higher education quality assurance and accreditation system, curricular relevance, pedagogical training and workload of academic staff, and quality indicators of science education.