Dismissal of university presidents raises accountability bar

When the presidents of three public universities were dismissed recently based on poor financial audits, shock waves rippled through the higher education sector.

The Ethiopian Ministry of Education’s decision to fire the three presidents came after a review by Parliament’s House of Representatives’ Standing Committee on Budget and Financial Affairs, which also issued warnings to six other universities for their poor financial performance.

The report from the federal Auditor General’s Office showed that, of the 24 federal institutions that were flagged for the negative findings in their audits, 13 were universities.

This should serve as a warning to the 51 public universities in the sector and could also be an indication of poor accountability in the system.

Unless the sector begins to scrutinise its financial practices and take corrective measures, the government’s growing demands for accountability could damage the reputation of individual institutions and the sector at large.

Accountability and its tools

The issue of accountability is essentially about the institutional obligation to report on performance and unmet expectations to appropriate organs and stakeholders.

Besides serving as a regulatory tool in which the government checks the proper utilisation of public resources and funds, accountability is useful for institutional self-improvement through a critical examination of one’s weaknesses and strengths.

Accountability can influence the behaviour of institutions by helping them to engage in responsible actions and to avoid malpractices.

Within the higher education sector, the nature of accountability is increasingly getting more complex owing to the multiplicity of stakeholders that universities must respond to and the issues that need to be addressed. The introduction of various accountability instruments and schemes has further complicated the task of universities.

Globally, the forms of accountability governments demand from higher education institutions have gradually expanded and diversified to include financial audits, public reporting on university affairs, performance funding, strategic plan agreements, performance assessments, accreditation and quality assurance.

Accountability of Ethiopian institutions

The earliest legislative directions set for the Ethiopian higher education sector said very little about institutional accountability, except for establishing financial audits as a requirement.

The 1954 Charter of the University College of Addis Ababa – the first higher education institution in the country – stipulated that the university board of governance should appoint an independent external auditor to evaluate the institution’s accounts annually and submit the report to the board.

Unfortunately, the 1961 Charter of the Haile Selassie University, now the Addis Ababa University, was mute on all forms of accountability, including financial matters.

The 1977 Proclamation to Provide for the Administration of Higher Education Institutions stated the need to establish accounting practices and the auditing of books as part of the accountability requirements that higher education institutions had to adhere to.

This proclamation stipulated that all accounts and property of higher education institutions should be audited annually by an auditor designated by the Auditor General and the findings of the audit should be reported to the university council for further action.

The 2009 higher education proclamation was perhaps the first piece of legislation that introduced accountability measures that higher education institutions should subscribe to.

These included financial audits, financial management, strategic plan agreements, reporting and supervision, and quality audits and accreditation.

The same forms of accountability have been endorsed in the 2019 Higher Education Proclamation, which is currently in place.

Financial audits

Financial audits are the oldest and most common accountability measure public institutions should adhere to.

As in the past, the accounts of a public institution are required to be annually audited by the Federal Auditor General or State Auditor General. The findings are reported both to the board and the ministry of education.

Public institutions are also expected to set up an internal audit unit that is accountable to the Ministry of Finance and is entrusted to conduct performance, financial and property audits. These findings are also reported to the president and the board.

Financial management

In terms of running their financial affairs, public universities are required by law to establish accounting and reporting systems as part of the responsibility and the management of the university president. This is in accordance with the law and the principles of efficiency, efficacy, frugality and transparency.

The 2019 proclamation gives a public institution the right to use its income in accordance with its approved business plan, but this could be difficult.

The Ethiopian Ministry of Education has the right to issue relevant directives on financial management at public universities, but it might have to consult with the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development, another government body entrusted with the management of public money at a national level.

Strategic plan agreement

Another accountability instrument is the strategic plan agreement that has to be concluded between Ethiopian public universities and the ministry of education.

This echoes the practice of what is called performance funding in other contexts and outlines mechanisms for accounting, monitoring, evaluation and reporting.

It is supposed to be renewed every five years and allows for amendments in the event of significant changes in the circumstances or assumptions on which it has been based.

Despite its importance, this accountability instrument has not been properly implemented.

Reporting and supervision

Public institutions are subjected to different forms of reporting and supervision.

The 2019 higher education proclamation requires of universities to submit their approved annual performance and audited financial reports based on their strategic plan agreements, and publish their educational and expenditure data for the fiscal year.

In addition, institutions have to publish accurate, detailed and comprehensive annual educational and financial statistical data which shall be published and distributed within 120 days after the end of the academic year.

Much remains to be done in this area too, given the implementation gap in institutions’ strategic plan agreements with the ministry, and the limited practice institutions have in publishing their annual data.

Institutions are also subjected to unannounced government inspections of their compliance with strategic plans and-or other legal requirements.

However, the only form of accountability that appears to be enforced is the statistical data institutions are providing to the ministry for publication in its annual statistical report. But this tradition appears to be faltering lately because the annual report has not been published regularly during the past few years.

Adherence to the ministry’s standards

Institutions are required to comply strictly with directives issued by the Ethiopian Ministry of Education regarding the admission of students, curricula standards, student assessments and examination systems.

The general assumption is that public institutions are meeting these expectations, but very little supervisory and enforcing mechanisms have been put in place should they fail to do so.

On the other hand, the task of ensuring that private institutions have appropriate and functional internal regulations is the responsibility of the Ethiopian Education and Training Authority, which does not have the same power over public institutions.

Academic audit and accreditation

Academic audits as an accountability tool are commonly applied in all types of institutions. Accreditation, on the other hand, is exclusively instituted for private institutions, barring them from initiating and running programmes without permission from the government.

Even a recent directive issued by the ministry to enforce the practice in the public sector appears to have been put on hold.

The Education and Training Authority also has the mandate to conduct unscheduled visits and investigations and take corrective measures related to the academic compliance of institutions, which again does not happen to be the case for public universities.

Commentators have pointed this out as serious gap in holding public universities accountable for the various functions and responsibilities they are shouldering.

Beyond financial audits

The Ethiopian higher education sector has enshrined different schemes of accountability in its relevant higher education acts to enhance the financial and institutional performances of public and private institutions.

However, the rigorous enforcement of these schemes have been patchy and unsatisfactory – to say the least.

Fiscal accountability, which is a key element of university administration, will not only help universities to avoid possible financial crises and risks, but it could also save them from embarrassment when their financial management is found to be lacking.

Universities should be exemplary in their commitment to strong fiscal management, transparency, accountability and stewardship of the public resources they are entrusted with. In this regard, the current government measure of holding institutions accountable for their failures may be regarded as an important step to ensure greater oversight and accountability in the sector.

However, this should also be supported by a similar level of accountability in the other areas of institutional performance where there has been little intervention and enforcement.

Ethiopian universities should also understand they should not only be accountable to the government, but also to internal and external stakeholders, including students, faculty, staff, alumni, funders and donors, and the community at large.

The bottom line

The demand for accountability within the Ethiopian higher education sector is set to intensify in the years to come.

The current plan of the government to offer improved levels of autonomy to universities through the 2023 autonomy proclamation and the corresponding accountability expected to be enforced, is a clear indication of where the sector is heading.

It is high time that university boards and institutional leaders ensured the establishment of appropriate and diversified administrative and academic policies and tools to make the necessary interventions and enhance the efficient use of their academic, physical and financial resources – in line with the legal and regulatory context in which they are operating.

It is not enough for higher education institutions to put schemes and tools in place. What is, perhaps, more important is that they also have to address concerns about the results and institutional outputs they are accountable for.

Wondwosen Tamrat (PhD) is an associate professor of higher education 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. This is a commentary.

This commentary has been updated on 14 June.