Addis Ababa, February 25, 2025 (ABN)
U.S. Embassy in Ethiopia and the Ethiopian Academy of Science (EAS) is conducting a five-day consultative workshop for presidents and leaders from nine of Ethiopia’s leading public universities. This workshop marked the culmination of the first phase of the U.S. Embassy’s $522,000 grant with EAS, which supports the universities’ transition to autonomous governance. A team of four experts, comprised of local, U.S., and international higher education experts, shared their insights and recommendations on the nine universities’ draft strategic plans and legislative policies through both general sessions and individual consultations.
During the opening session of the workshop, U.S. Ambassador Ervin J. Massinga stated that “while establishing the regulatory framework for university autonomy was a significant undertaking, the real challenge lies ahead.” Translating these regulations into tangible change requires navigating a complex and unprecedented transformation of 47 diverse public universities across the country.
“As difficult as it has been to create the regulatory structure that allows for the transition to autonomy, I expect everyone in this room realizes that that was the easy part. Transforming those regulations into reality means transforming 47 large and diverse institutions in complicated and unprecedented ways. This is an uncharted path in Ethiopian higher education, but a path that the U.S. government sees as opening up immense opportunities to improve the quality of education across Ethiopia’s higher education sector.”
Following the August 2023 university autonomy proclamation, the U.S. Embassy and university leadership assembled a Technical Expert Advisory Team to directly support Addis Ababa University (AAU), the first university to become autonomous, in developing key policies AAU deemed essential to its success as an independent university. By December 2024, AAU had finalized and adopted six key framework policy documents, including its strategic plan and policies for university legislation, student admissions, internationalization, resource mobilization, and endowment.
In the current phase of the project, the Advisory Team is consulting with nine other leading public universities to develop their own key policy documents in areas such as student admission, alumni engagement, and endowment.
Simultaneously, through a grant with EAS, the U.S. Embassy is collaborating with the Ministry of Education to jumpstart universities’ transitions to autonomy, through workshops that build institutional capacity in grants management, research administration, student admissions, alumni engagement, educational leadership, endowment funds, and other areas.
The U.S. government views the transition of Ethiopia’s public universities to autonomous governance as an immense opportunity to improve the quality of education across Ethiopia’s higher education sector, create economic opportunity for Ethiopia’s university graduates, and build institutional partnerships that strengthen both U.S. and Ethiopian universities. This partnership in higher education builds upon a long history of U.S. support for Ethiopian higher education, dating back to the 1950’s establishment of Haromaya, Jimma, and Gondar, Universities under the Point Four program. The U.S. government and the American people remain committed to the success of higher education in Ethiopia.
