Training of HE leaders requires a holistic response

The value of induction, coaching and continuous training for higher education leaders cannot be overemphasised.

Obviously, creating visions, setting institutional directions and galvanising the university community towards a common goal require the recruitment, training and development of institutional leaders.

The former ministry of science and higher education, (now the Ethiopian Ministry of Education) has set in motion initiatives in terms of developing leadership curricula and setting up one national and a few regional centres for higher education leadership.

But, as the sector awaits a progress report, the existing need for leadership training in Ethiopia has become more pressing, especially in contexts where the sector has been experiencing huge changes and transformation.

In fact, it has been an important feature of higher education for more than two decades now in line with the exponential growth of the sector.

So, a lot remains to be done in terms of charting a long-term and sustainable direction in the training of higher education leaders.

Leadership was identified as one major focus area when the 1994 Education and Training Policy was released to provide new direction to the Ethiopian education system.

Following this, poor quality and the commitment of those in leadership positions were identified as key challenges of the higher education sector in documents such as ‘Future Directions of Higher Education in Ethiopia’ which was issued by the ministry of education at the earliest phase of sectoral reforms.

Improving the leadership in and the management of the sector was similarly identified as one major component of the 2002 Higher Education Capacity Building Programme issued and the 2004 Higher Education System Overhaul (HESO) initiated by the ministry in order to realise the plans set in the 20-year education sector development programmes in general, and that of the 2003 higher education proclamation in particular.

HESO, in particular, focused on assessing and analysing the most likely management, leadership and governance challenges of the sector and sought to identify and prioritise possible and applicable changes and improvements in the form of action plans for implementation of the system reform.

Despite such emphasis and clear policy directions intended to respond to the deficiencies of higher education leadership, very little leadership development and training has been taking place over the years.

Another area of concern has been the fact that interventions have been undertaken often in a disorganised fashion.

Various initiatives

The need for various forms of leadership training has been identified since the onset of higher education reforms in Ethiopia.

Many reviews and policy documents indicate that leaders need training in areas such as strategic planning, financial management, leadership mentoring, communication skills, human resource management, systems review, as well as resource generation and utilisation.

University leaders’ capacity to lead institutions in times of change and expansion; and capacities in strategy formulation, organising, team-building, monitoring and problem-solving have also been some of the major need areas identified.

The urgent need towards improving higher education leadership in the sector has led to a variety of initiatives that included schemes such as involving skilled foreign volunteers to serve as advisers to the ministry and university executives.

There have also been efforts in which foreigners were assigned to lead a few Ethiopian universities.

While some argue about the advantages of these efforts in terms of creating better networks and introducing new systems, others say they offer little value in terms of long-term impact and that such leaders experience difficulties in terms of understanding the local context and responding accordingly.

Encouragingly, the major efforts in the past decade appear to have been directed at arranging capacity building training that aims at improving the skills of higher education leaders at various institutional levels.

Training efforts

Several short-term training opportunities have been arranged for Ethiopian higher education leaders through their own universities, the ministry of education and development partners.

Institutional visits, experience sharing and training focused on leadership conducted through such schemes are assumed to have contributed their share to leadership development in the sector.

However, the level of these training opportunities and the impact of the training are not clear, since limited data and documentation exist across the sector.

Apart from various short-term training initiatives, one of the earliest formal efforts in higher education leadership development in Ethiopia is perhaps the two-year Leadership, Management Development Programme offered to Ethiopian higher education leaders in 2006-08 through support from the Netherlands Universities Foundation for International Cooperation (NUFFIC).

The other popular initiative undertaken from 2011- 15 was what was known as the University Leadership and Management Capacity Development Project, conducted in partnership with NUFFIC and the Maastricht School of Management.

The project involved a grant of €2 million (about US$2.3 million), and provided 33 training sessions to 805 participants, 133 of which were female.

These included formal action learning-based training and international study visits arranged for top-level managers of the 13 universities that were involved in the project.

The training also involved the preparation of training manuals and trainer guides with a view to enhancing the longer and wider capacity development objectives of the project.

Though short in duration, a recent related initiative is the Leadership, Management and Governance Programme for Higher Education Administrators in Ethiopia provided under the United States Department of State’s Bureau of African Affairs’ University Partnerships Initiative, designed to strengthen ties and encourage collaboration between US and African universities.

This comprehensive three-week professional development training for Ethiopian higher education administrators was led by Texas Tech University, Ohio State University and Oklahoma State University in partnership with the US Embassy in Addis Ababa and the ministry of science and higher education (now the Ethiopian Ministry of Education).

The major objectives of the training have been to enhance administrative abilities, competence and confidence, to gain a deeper understanding of issues affecting institutions, and to lead and manage change effectively.

Training through the Ethiopian Institute of Higher Education

Locally, the Ethiopian Institute of Higher Education (EIHE) is perhaps the first organised response in terms of setting up a nationally dedicated leadership training institution that addresses higher education leadership development in Ethiopia.

This institute has been established at Addis Ababa University as a collaborative effort between the Ethiopian Ministry of Education and the German Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development. It is now accountable to the ministry through the former Higher Education Strategic Center (which has now become part of the ministry).

EIHE was formally inaugurated on 8 June 2018 and involved local trainers and international experts drawn from institutions such as the Center for Higher Education Policy Studies in the Netherlands and the German Centre for Higher Education.

Over the past three years, it has been able to provide training to nearly 400 middle-level leaders drawn from almost all public institutions across the country.

This included a unique training opportunity arranged for 150 female leaders.

The institutions’ plans to offer a training of trainers for leaders drawn from different universities aimed at ensuring continuity.

Challenges and future directions

Despite the many encouraging efforts and initiatives, the leadership training in Ethiopia faces a variety of challenges.

While little is known about the impact of the training offered so far, addressing challenges such as the setting up of a nationwide leadership training institute, resource allocation, curricula development and sector-wide coordination are key to improving the status quo.

At its earlier phase, the setting up of the Ethiopian Institute of Higher Education was considered as a solution to these challenges, but the fact that there are still no clear directions about the fate of the institution, both in terms of its mandates and its resourcing, continue to be a problem.

The outcomes of commendable initiatives made by the former ministry of science and higher education in terms of developing relevant curricula and setting up one national and a few regional centres of higher education leadership training institutes, remain unclear, as was noted in the introduction of this article.

But, given the increasing number of higher education institutions and the complexity of the sector, it is imperative that the question of higher education leadership development receives the attention it deserves.

Exploring past efforts and initiatives may provide the impetus for the new moves that are required. Ensuring the sustainability of the initiative through long-term planning is especially critical to solving the various leadership challenges currently confronting the higher education sector.

Wondwosen Tamrat is an associate professor and founding president of St Mary’s University, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, a collaborating scholar of the Programme for Research on Private Higher Education at the State University of New York at Albany, United States, and coordinator of the private higher education sub-cluster of the Continental Education Strategy for Africa. He may be reached at preswond@smuc.edu.et or wondwosen@gmail.com.