The Consortium of Ethiopian Public Universities (CEPU) reportedly stated its successes and challenges it achieved and/or faced while performing activities in the previous Fiscal Year (FY), July 2021 – June 2022.
CEPU is a universities alliance that advocates quality education, community engagement and works on issues of national importance in higher education through inter-public university strategic alliance, collaboration and networking for the betterment of higher education in Ethiopia.
According to the report, CEPU achieved a number of successes in the FY through executing a number of tasks based on its annual plan. Taking three meetings, the CEPU Board set out important direction on the day to day activities of the Secretariat; improving the CEPU’s annual plan (2014 E.C) as well as developing a 5 Year Strategic Plan (2022-2027); and holding a meeting with MoE officials to address salary and fringe benefit issues.
The report stated that CEPU’s General Assembly Meetings took place twice in the FY: the first at Adama Science and Technology University (ASTU) on August 29, 2021, and the second on January 15, 2022 at Ethiopian Civil Service University (ECSU) in which CEPU’s performance reports were presented and important discussions as well as decisions were made.
Revision on the CEPU’s Oversea Health Insurance issues and an extension of the current CEPU’s Board Members governing span of time to a second term where the new election will be conducted in July 2023 were succeeded, the report further indicated.
As clarified in the report, ten conference proposals with issues related to quality education and national importance were developed and submitted to the CEPU Governing Board for further discussions and decisions.
The report further stated that three national conferences were held with targeted themes of Post-conflict and Higher Education assessing Local and International perspectives; University Exit Exam and Quality Education; and University Autonomy and Quality Education.
Regarding the university autonomy, the report added that Professor Tassew Woldehanna and Kassa Michael (PhD) presented scientific papers and scholarly discussions were made during the conference. The issue of public university autonomy gained attention as AAU is going to grant the status in the not too distant future as mentioned by HE Samuel Kifle (PhD), State Minster for Higher Education Sector, the MoE, FDRE.
The CEPU has witnessed a successful year regardless of challenges on not getting satisfactory reply from the MoE concerning public university Presidents’ and VPs’ salary as well as fringe benefit issues, and the failure of some members to pay their annual membership fees, only 79.1% was achieved.
The report further clarified that the CEPU develops national and international conference proposals; establishes national and international partnership and collaboration with similar sister oversea organizations; and signed MoU with Ethiopian National Dialogue Commission (ENDC).
Proposal development of the CEPU, as highlighted in the report, focuses on the quality of the teachers and the teaching system itself in HEIs; the Ethiopian Higher Education Entrance Certificate Exam Administrations in Public Universities; Assessing, Treating and Educating War Trauma Exposed School Children and Youth in Ethiopia; …
The report finally stated that the CEPU with the help of Dereje Engida (PhD) and Petros Woldegiorgis (PhD) has tried to establish an international collaboration with People to People International Organization (P2P), which mainly works on education and health sectors.
CEPU’s work ( Hamele 2013 – Sene 2014 E.C )
Report: From CEPU
Photo: Andualem Aseffa
Editor: Abraham Girmay