Ethiopia / Student 2 Basic questions Which university did you attend? Bahir Dar University, Ethiopia Did you have a choice of universities to attend, and if so why did you choose the school you attended? No, you simply apply to attend a programme and the ministry of education assigns the place to study. Describe the university briefly. The categories below seem interesting to me, but please also provide any other details or stories that you feel are interesting. The more the better. How many students attend Probably around more than 5000 (reguar students I mean full time students) Size of classes (how many students per classroom) It depends, first year students are always around 50 to 60 some times it exceeds to 80 due to lack of teachers and classroom. Where students live Full time students live in the university. Whether the university is selective or open to all It is selective. Whether students are local or from all over the country (or from other countries) From all over the country. Actually about 10 years before some East African students used to come to be qualified as a teacher especially from Sudan. How easy it was to talk with your professors It is somewhat hard. What your professors were like What the facilities were like: were there computers, were the classrooms crowded, was the library good, etc. They like very good students. They are all theoretical. Actually it is because of lack of experience and nothing to do experiments. No tutorial at all. Whether you had internet access % male vs. female students % of students studying technical fields (math, science, engineering) Ethiopia / Student 2 1
Obstacles to attending university How much did it cost each year to attend your university? Actually all is covered by the government but loan (cost sharing) system was implemented before two years. On average a student needs 150 Eth. Birr=10 dollars (pocket money) from his/her familly per month. What are the most common reasons, in your opinion, that secondary school graduates in your country do NOT continue on to university? Very few students are given opportunity to attend. Because of the limited number of universities as compared to those students who complete secondary schools the number of students to be selected are few. The rest are supposed to study privately which is too expensive and impossible for 99% of the students. Surprisingly, a few years before those who scored less than 3.00 out of 4.00 were not lucky to join the university by the government. Another is lack of university. Total population is about more than 60 million but only 8 universities are found in the country with limited carrying capacity. Did you personally overcome any obstacles in attending university? Yes indeed. Had I not been strong, it was difficult to be here even to get a bachelor degree. University education quality Do you feel your university prepared you adequately for graduate school? Yes indeed but not with up to date curriculum. And everything is theoretical and old fashioned. What do you think you learned well at university? Mathematics. But as a mathematician more courses of computer should be given. Due to lack of teachers I didn t do advanced courses. What do you wish you d learned better? Mathematics with computer and computational skill. But I took only one introduction computer course. So, when I was graduating I didn t have a detailed knowledge of computers. I didn t do a thesis in my undergraduate as there was not enough number of teachers to advise all those students. No more project works are there. Ethiopia / Student 2 2
In general, describe some positive features of your university It makes me a real teacher of Mathematics. Our teachers do their best to make us skillful with utmost potential. The pedagogical and psychological courses were really nice. Describe some negative features Many professional courses for mathematicians are given. More computer and more advanced courses are not included. Do a significant fraction of your university s students drop out without graduating? If so, what are the factors that cause people to drop out? For instance, from 43 students at the beginning of second year only 27 graduated. Most drop outs are due to: the difficulty in exams and the way teachers use to grade (scale) students work. Post-university What did you do after university & before [ ]? for how long? I taught at the university for the last two years. Was this your ideal career choice, and if not, what would you have preferred to do, and what were the obstacles to getting your desired employment or training? Yes, I prefer to be a teacher at the university. I was too much eager to know computation but I did nothing in my undergraduate because of lack of teachers in the area and lack of computers as well. There was only one computer center having not more than 30 computers for all students taking the computer course. The obstacles were due to lack of teacher in computation, lack of computers. I want to be a good researcher. I didn t do research before because of lack of teachers who are skilled in the area and no material to refer for research in science fields. Did many of your friends at university go on to graduate school or professional degrees, or would that be a very unusual choice? Probably about 10 % of the students go to graduate school within the last two years. By the way those who have completed their undergraduate degree will go to postgraduate if they are teaching at the univerity. This is because the university will pay for the tuition fee. Without this it is dificult to finance privately and study postgraduate programnme. Ethiopia / Student 2 3
[ ] benefit and future plans Please describe what you gained from attending [ ] I gained computational skill and I have got access to meet my interest because of the variety of courses given. Really I appreciate [ ] education. More over, exposure to professors from different countries is really a very useful experience. Has attending [ ] changed your goals and career opportunities? It cannot change my goal because the only goal I have is to be skillful and upgrade myself. But It helped me to see what is around and a little bit widens the opportunity for my career. What could [ ] do better? Computational, and letting world wide professors teach and share experience. What will (did) you do immediately after [ ]? I will study my MSc. What do you expect to be doing in 10 years? To upgrade myself as much as I can and do very useful researches for Africa and contribute to my home country development to the maximum of my potential If you are not planning to go back to your home country, what would have to change to make you want to go back? There should be a motivation from the government to bring back educated people and do research without any interference of the government. The universities should be a place for excellence. Policy If you were appointed the head of the education department in your country, what changes would you argue for? I would automatically change the education policy that doesn t allow many things and give priorities for academicians to run rather than politicians. Could international donors help make those changes happen? How? Yes they can. But international donors are linked with politicians and allowed to do what politicians tell them to. These international donors should be free to do what they want to do. In addition they should encourage researchers and give priority by giving a chance to Ethiopia / Student 2 4
study in a good place outside the country to share experience and make the individual skillful but with a rule that forces the student go back to his/her home country after completing his/her study, like Norway does in its quota programme. If you were invited to UNESCO to make a presentation about how the U.N. should help African higher education, what would you ask for? (Please be somewhat realistic here!) One thing, UN should run and control the money it gives for the country. Countries bring money from abroad for education but use for other purposes as well as use the money for themselves by corruption. So, the organization who is funding the money should have a technique to control every activity done by that money. Another thing, most people coming from abroad to teach in Ethiopia are paid a huge amount of money, may hire 3 Ethiopian doctors with one overseas teacher salary, but they are not doing it properly. Most are coming with corruption or are less effective in their country. Actually there are very few people coming from abroad who are excellent, but few, probably 1% of the total. I have been taught by these teachers in my undergraduate and I have seen them when I was a teacher teaching the same course with them. They don t care about the outcome but simply cover what they are supposed to cover. Their way of evaluation is not to be hated by students. There was one doctor who came from Asia who cannot speak English. Surprisingly he was supposed to teach in English. He was paid by another organization. So, he spent one year just doing some maintaining and fixing computers going from office to office that any man can do. Because of the fact that he has to finish his one year contract and the money was not paid by the gov t he stayed for a year and he left back. Rather than bringing and hiring other countries citizens who do not know many things about the country, the organization is good if it brings back citizens of the country living abroad for a semester or something like that with that money. How representative are you? Did your mother & father attend university? Your siblings? No. When you were a child, did you (and your parents) assume that you would attend university? and if not, what made you decide to go? Yes. Did most of your secondary school classmates go on to university? Yes. Ethiopia / Student 2 5
Were you one of the top students at your university? What fraction of your classmates at university could cope with a program at the level of [ ]? Yes. Almost all can cope up. I know that smart minds are there but no opportunities to see what is going on in the developed world and can not up to date themselves. Anecdotes Please tell me a story (or stories) about your university that is especially revealing. Choose whatever you want, and write as much as you want. For example, some ideas from my own university experience include a professor who was especially meaningful or helpful, a frustrating experience trying to register for classes, a friend who had to leave school, and an experience doing research with a professor. Many smart teachers left the the university every year finding better life. Most are found abroad and they never come back. No up to date books in the university and cannot do good researches even those who have good experience from abroad. No internet access in the university. The money to be paid for it is too much and difficult to cover by the university. It is good those international organizations do such things that can motivate professors in the university. Ethiopia / Student 2 6