Working in the university and being involved with doctorate studies at the same time gave me the idea to visit local Wolayta Soddo University which lies on the on the outskirts of town. When I pulled in the gates of the university with our local friend Bisrat we were directed straight to the vice-presidents office (I’m not quite sure whether it was due to Bisrat’s contacts or to my skin colour). The campus of the university which is only six years old turned out to be surprisingly large consisting of about thirty concrete buildings each three or four storeys high.
The vice-president of the university greeted us with hospitality in his spacious office, gave a short overview of the history, faculties and other aspects and assured any kind of support towards cooperation. Having heard I am doing my doctoral studies in sociology he immediately introduced me to the dean of the sociology faculty and to the head of the Sociology Institute.
Wolayta University is one of eighteen new universities created over the last decade in different cities of Ethiopia under the campaign to better the situation of higher education. The lack of students is one thing that certainly can’t be complained about, for example the number of students in Soddo was already over ten thousand. Drought of qualified supply of labour is the biggest problem. For example it suffices of one hands fingers to count all the lecturers who had a PhD and people who had master’s degree were also scarce. Therefore only bachelor’s level of studies existed in most areas. Given this situation it doesn’t seem that surprising that even I was given the opportunity to give lectures to the sociology student s the following week. In return I was allocated time in each faculty to conduct a questionnaire for my own thesis.
All studies are in English and funding is based on cost-share system, which means free education at first including accommodation and food but later wards the fee for education reflects in certain percentage of the salary paid monthly to the university. So it is a rather egalitarian system, but indirectly favors those who have had the chance to attend a private school and acquire better level of English.
In addition to the generally positive welcome I was invited as guest to a conference of science in the university where the lecturers presented their researches. It was a very interesting event since most of the work was rather applicable and characterized vividly the most acute problems of the region like shortage of drinking water, gender inequalities or unequal access to legal aid.
If in Estonian universities, despite good studying conditions, there are problems with the motivation of the students, it didn’t seem to be a problem in the Wolaita University. For now higher education is a privilege in Ethiopia and it is valued accordingly.
LAUR