Context
Based on per-capita income, Ethiopia is one of the poorest countries in the world. The national development strategy – the Growth and Transformation Plan (GTP) – has set ambitious goals for economic development, investments in social and economic infrastructure, and poverty reduction. As one of the prerequisites for sustainable development, considerable investments are made in the education sector to build domestic capacities, resources and abilities, particularly as regards promoting training systems with a technical orientation, to produce skilled workers for the growing economy.
To date, vocational training and teaching and research at universities have not yet been consistently oriented to practical needs or to quality. The reasons for this are a lack of qualified teachers and technical staff, limited financial resources along with a rapidly increasing number of students, and shortfalls in the management of the education institutions.
Objective
Graduates of engineering emerging from the higher education and vocational training systems have the qualifications required to enter the national labour market.
Approach
The reform and expansion of vocational training, vocational teacher training and university education should make a sustainable contribution to employment, while boosting the productivity of the Ethiopian economy. With diverse advisory and training measures, the programme supports improvements in the planning of education by the education ministry and the vocational training agency, as well as in the authorities and regional ministries. The aim is to build up the necessary capacities and skills to manage reforms. The integration of labour market data in the education planning process serves to promote the design of training courses that meet the demands of the labour market. The programme also supports the development of technology and business incubators at universities.
The programme comprises the following components:
Higher education reform in engineering
Technical and vocational education and training (TVET) reform
Results achieved so far
The programme is a continuation of the German support for Ethiopia’s vocational training and university reforms, which began in 2005. The following results have been achieved by 2014.
With new technical equipment, more than 40 vocational schools as well as three universities and four examination centres are now in a position to offer new courses and better practical training.
The national vocational training system has undergone reform and is now more practice-oriented. In 2012, around 353,000 students were enrolled in the more than 800 vocational schools.
In 2012/13, more than 125,000 students graduated from their vocational training courses.
More than 80 practice-oriented university curriculums have been developed and introduced at the institutes of technology. More than 500 lecturers have received training in university teaching methods. As such, the learning environment for students has improved.
At university level, almost 80,000 students and nearly 6,500 post-graduate students have so far graduated, half of them in engineering subjects.
A tracer study based on 836 of the graduates has shown that 89% of the university engineering graduates and 56% of the vocational school leavers are now in employment. 82% of those university graduates and 60% of the vocational school graduates are in positions appropriate to their qualifications.
Due to the systematic integration of practical work experience in the curriculums, more than 7,000 students have been able to gain practical experiences even before their courses have ended.
A study of employers carried out by the programme revealed that 61% of them are satisfied with the technical skills and decision-making capacities of the school and university graduates.