Dear Mizan-Tepi University community and stakeholders, it gives me a great pleasure to share my message with you as a Director of Education Quality Assurance and Relevance Directorate of our University. Dears, a strong higher education system is vital to produce trained manpower; expand scientific knowledge, advance technology and innovations that could lead to multifaceted development of a nation.
It has to be underscored and recognized that quality higher education is crucial to the economic, social and political development of our country. Cognizant of this fact, the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia is continuously funding, politically supporting and extensively monitoring the quality of Education provided by Higher Education Institutions.
In this regard, the experience we have acquired from the last two-decades tell us that as a country demonstrable changes have been observed in both access and equity of Higher Education but less in its quality. These successes could be manifested by increased number of Higher Education Institutions and students’ enrolment, raising share of government spending on higher education; increased number of teachers having the required academic standards and improved teacher to students’ ratio of Higher Education Institutions.
Presently, to increase the quality of higher education, remarkable efforts are underway by the government including formulating education policies and packages, introducing new reforms and restructuring and standardizing higher education institutions. In addition, the government is increasing its spending of national income by considering higher education as a priority in comparison to many other national sectors.
Dear my fellow staffs and students, to speak a few from the multitudinous tasks done at institutional level so far, beside to the regular routines Mizan-Tepi University has established and laid down governance structure of its higher education quality, conducted quality audits and program level evaluations and drafted different working guidelines and manuals.
Nowadays, the University is working hard to accomplish the goal set to produce competent, disciplined and productive graduates by providing quality and relevant higher education as per its Ten-year Strategic Plan. Despite all these significant progress and effort, the quality of higher education remains as a serious issue at institution and national level in general. Concerns to address the issue of quality in higher education is not sufficiently addressed yet.
Equitable access to quality higher education, improved students’ creativity and problem-solving capacities are not fully realized. The fact that the issue of higher education quality is very vast and all encompassing, its realization demands comprehensive and collective effort. Though the government is allocating huge resource, formulating and reformulating policies, designing and redesigning curriculums, these alone could not be a guarantee for assuring quality of higher education. Coordinating these opportunities and integrating with strong commitment of the stakeholder is very crucial.
For this matter, as a Director of Education Quality Assurance and Relevance Directorate of the University, I call upon all the concerned to act individually, as a group and institutionally to the level of your maximum potential; assure a mutual accountability and responsibility in the long and painstaking journey to realize the quality of education in our University. Thank you very much.
Miressa Y.(PhD), Director, Education Quality Assurance and Relevance Directorate, MTU mailto:suleymans2001@gmail.com
Email: miressayad@gmail.com