Leadership and Management Capacity Develoopment in Higher Education System
The overall objective of this project was the institutional capacity of the Higher education sector, in particular the luster of 8 “first-generation” Universities to deliver adequate education, meeting the quantitative and qualitative demands for a sufficiently trained labor force, addressing the socio-economic development needs of the country. The project supports capacity development in support of the implementation of the envisaged institutional reforms and transformation agenda of higher education system. Governance, leadership and management of key stakeholders in HE-sector has been improved: in the eight first-generation public universities, in the three system support units (HERQA, HESC and HEQEI) and in the Ministry of Higher Education. MSM’s engagement in particular concerned training development and delivery for various levels of senior leadership. Key themes of the current reform and transformation in the Higher Education System in Ethiopia that were addressed were University governance, leadership and management, quality and relevance, institutional efficiency, financing, and access to education and equity. They training and capacity development provided board members, presidents & vice presidents, senior staff from the Ministry of Education, deans, department heads, reform teams and administrative managers with requisite knowledge, skills and attitudes to implement the change agenda and engage in the process of business process re-engineering.
Further to the training and coaching, exposure visits were organized for benchmarking in comparable universities. The participating universities were further guided and supported, to implement decentralized management at the universities. Each of the university had, as part of the general project, a unique sub-project, targeting university governance, management and administration of the core functions, education, research and consultancy services. Finally, the project also developed a revised organogram for the Ministry, in conformity with the changes resulting from the reform process.
A follow-up project, targeting twelve 2nd generation universities, is currently being implemented by MSM.