A consortium of three U.S. higher institutions – Texas Tech, Oklahoma State, and Ohio State Universities – has offered a capacity-building program for leaders of public universities in Ethiopia.
The Ministry of Education and the U.S. Embassy in Addis Ababa partnered to fund a grant for the program named Leadership, Management, and Governance (LMG).
“The program is very instrumental for the delivery of the university system,” said State Minister of Education Dr. Samuel Kifle.
It “also to ensure our graduates get better quality education, and our university system is strengthened,” the state minister noted.
The latest collaboration “is an important demonstration of the friendship” between Ethiopia and the United States,” said Ambassador Tracey Jacobson, Chargé d’Affaires of the U.S. Embassy.
“We are investing in education here because it is the key to unlocking the potential of Ethiopia,” Ambassador Jacobson added.
The initial round of the LMG program trained 27 higher education administrators from 19 public universities, including nine university presidents, 16 vice presidents, and two Ministry of Education officials.
The participants attended a workshop in August 2022 in Addis Ababa and then traveled to the US to visit Texas Tech, Ohio State, and Oklahoma State Universities.
The program provided an opportunity for participants to learn current global trends in higher education leadership, management, and governance issues.
They also shared their best practices with U.S. institutions and learned from their counterparts in the United States in academic affairs, research, and innovation.
The university leaders came back to Ethiopia with the objective of creating models to apply to the Ethiopian higher education environment.
The US Embassy said it granted $502,000 to Texas Tech University, the lead university of this consortium, for the program that also aims to enhance American-Ethiopian university partnerships.
The second cohort of LMG will select another 25 public university leaders, who will participate in a similar program in the summer of 2023 in Addis Ababa and the United States, the embassy said. The call for applications will be open in December 2022.
