Presentation Give on Education Development Army in Higher Education
It is common these days to hear about development army, education development army, health development army, and reform army etc…in Ethiopia. What all these naming have in common is `army`. The freedictionary.com defined army as `a large group of people organized for a specific cause’. What the phrase `specific cause` in this definition refers to in Ethiopia`s context, is being able to extricate from poverty.
In all sectors and aspects of life, people understand the need to act in an organized manner for this noble cause. Cognizant of this fact, Ethiopian Civil Service University organized reform army two years ago. The reform army is organized in three tiers: university level, institute or center level, and department, team or unit level.
ECSU has gone through a lot of ups and dawns before the idea of reform army reaches to the level where it exists now. People used to think that it is a kind of management tool like BPR or BSC, and it is introduced on the expense of these tools. In order to avoid these misconceptions, consecutive trainings and awareness creation meetings, and discussions were held at the university. It is after all these efforts that the concept of reform army became deep rooted in the university.
In order to keep the momentum going forward, Ethiopian Civil Service University management organized a half day idea sharing session for the academic and administration staff and students on Wednesday, January 1, 2014. Dr.Ferdessa Jebesa, Higher Education Academic and Research Directorate director in the Ministry of Education spoke on organization and objectives of education development army in higher education. He said
"education development army in higher education helps achieve the higher educations establishment objectives, which in most cases are education, research and community services. "
Dr. Ferdessa further said for the higher educations to achieve their objectives all the three wings - the government, the public and the vanguards should work hand in hand.
Dr. Hailemichael Abera president of Ethiopian Civil Service University flags up the presentation as very useful. Dr. Hailemichael in the occasion explained the University`s efforts to establish and sustain reform army in the University.
Dr. Samson Kassahun, Academic President of Ethiopian Civil Service University said
"as high education Institution with special mission of building the capacity of the public sector, we will take the presentation as input in our on going effort to strengthen the reform army in our University."