Higher education in Ethiopia: Widening access and persisting inequalities

Abstract

In the last ten years, Ethiopian higher education (HE) has witnessed an extensive expansion and system-wide restructuring. The changes in the system were primarily aimed at producing a suitably qualified workforce for the national human resource development plan at the centre of the country's poverty reduction programme and ensuring HE's responsiveness to the nation's economic needs. At a system level, the government has introduced a new HE proclamation that sets the legal framework for the reform process, and has aggressively invested in the establishment of new universities and institutes. Even so, when viewed from Trow's (2006) categorisation, participation in Ethiopian HE is far from 'mass' and can more accurately be described as 'elite'. Inequality in access to, and success in, HE remains a critical challenge. This chapter seeks to show why widening access does not necessarily translate into equity.